


Shalom Malakh

by ZairaA



Category: X-Men (Alternate Timeline Movies), X-Men (Movies), X-Men - All Media Types, X-Men: Days of Future Past (2014) - Fandom, X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angel!Erik, Angst, BAMF, Canon Disabled Character, Canon Jewish Character, First Time, Getting Back Together, Grief/Mourning, Kid Fic, M/M, Mansion Fic, Mutant Politics, Second Chances, Snark, Temporary Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-09
Updated: 2016-05-09
Packaged: 2018-06-04 21:59:05
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 32,093
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6676927
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ZairaA/pseuds/ZairaA
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When death catches up with Erik a year after the Sentinel disaster, he only has one regret: never having found a way to bridge the gap and reconcile with Charles. But death is not the end of the journey, and Erik is put right in the path of his old friend once more.</p><p> <br/><i>“Okay. Let’s say I bite. Who is the hapless idiot then? The one I'm supposed to look after?”</i></p><p>  <i>The woman smirked. “Oh, I’m certain you'll know it once you see him.” </i></p>
            </blockquote>





	Shalom Malakh

**Author's Note:**

  * For [spaceAltie](https://archiveofourown.org/users/spaceAltie/gifts).



> Written for the [X-Men Big Bang, Round 4](http://archiveofourown.org/collections/xmenbigbang4).
> 
> Many thanks to the amazingly talented [spaceAltie](http://archiveofourown.org/users/spaceAltie) for teaming up with me and being such a great friend and co-conspirator. And also for not being too upset when it didn't turn out to be the romantic comedy we originally planned for. XD Many thanks as well to the wonderful [Ingberry](http://archiveofourown.org/users/ingberry/) who beat this fic into shape and made it so much better. Thanks also to [MssDare](http://archiveofourown.org/users/mssdare/) and [ Crimsonswirls](http://archiveofourown.org/users/crimsonswirls/) for pre-reading and cheering and to [afrocurl](http://archiveofourown.org/users/afrocurl/) for being such a fantastic mod. Enjoy the story! <3
> 
> Art can be found here [ on ao3](http://archiveofourown.org/works/6784972) and [ on tumblr](http://spacealtie.tumblr.com/post/144046640422/hi-everyone-heres-my-contribution-to-the-x-men) , and please shower spaceAltie with all the love she so very much deserves!

Death had followed Erik since he was a very young boy. It was the taste of ash in his mouth. The thousands of gaunt shadows that lived behind his eyelids. The numbers scratched into his skin. Erik wasn’t afraid, and he held no silly illusions. To him, death was no mystery, only the ultimate consequence.

Whatever fantasies he might have harbored as a child about the existence of a merciful god, who would listen to his nighttime prayers and hold a protecting hand over him—they had slipped from his fingers along with the rest of his innocence in the face of the atrocities humankind was capable of. Erik didn't believe in fairy tales, and what else was the idea of heaven or a life after death?

As the underground compound started to crumble around him—stone and mortar and concrete that seemed to sneer at his abilities as it crushed him like an insect—Erik knew this was his final moment. There would be no bright light, no happy reunion with his loved ones, and the only regret he allowed himself was the memory of a once boyish face with the brightest pair of blue eyes he had ever encountered. He kept it at the forefront of his mind, the only thing worth holding on to.

He couldn't feel his legs anymore which, he conceded with a humorless laugh that never made it over his lips, was an interesting turn of Karma. He wondered briefly whether Charles would appreciate this, but immediately knew that he wouldn't. Charles was no saint, but he had never been spiteful. Breathing became a struggle, and every gasp was accompanied by a wet gurgle, telling him about the blood that was slowly filling his lungs. His helmet might have saved him from a worse head injury, but the rest of his body was quickly beginning to shut down. He didn't have long. Minutes, maybe.

He could still feel the song of the metal around him, even if he was too weak to do more than rattle a few beams and he wisely didn't attempt that. Somehow, when he had imagined dying for the cause, he had not thought it would be like this: Trapped, his body smashed, in the dark. Alone.

_You're not alone._

Charles' words, spoken what felt like a lifetime ago, came to him unbidden. After Washington, Erik was no longer sure which of them had first betrayed the promise they had given each other that night. Maybe it didn't matter. Maybe all that mattered was the lack of effort to make up for it, to find some sort of common ground where they could have met and salvaged whatever it was that had been between them.

As his thoughts were turning hazy, Erik pulled off the helmet with his last bit of strength. It was probably too late. He had no idea where Charles was and whether he would even listen, but it was all he had left.

 _I'm sorry,_ he thought with all the force he could muster. _I should have tried harder._

The blackness that had been slowly creeping in from all directions was upon him now, enveloped him and dragged him down into a cold and bottomless ocean, and with his last spark of brilliant clarity Erik understood that death had finally caught up.

*

Erik was right about one thing. There was no tunnel and no light. He simply found himself standing inside what, on closer inspection, looked like a train station. Columns of light gray marble were rising up to a vaulted ceiling, forming an imposing hall with polished floors and and sweeping staircases. Scattered light fell through a row of high, arched windows, but all that it illuminated was a vast absence and a ringing silence. There were no rushing travelers, no vendors or newspaper stands. There was no life.

Well, almost. In front of him, a row of ticket counters stretched along one wall, and in one of them a blonde woman in a gray suit sat behind the lattice screen, studying a single sheet of paper. She cleared her throat and turned to him with a polite but cool smile.

“Erik Lehnsherr?”

Erik narrowed his eyes. _Who wants to know?_ he was about to ask, but the woman just hummed, as if he had actually answered, and made a note on the sheet.

“You're Jewish?” she asked in the same calmly detached manner.

“...Yes.”

The woman looked up. “But you're also an atheist, is that right?”

Erik frowned. He had never put much thought into such labels. “I suppose. What's that—”

“We try to accommodate people's beliefs and religions,” the woman explained with another thin smile, studying her paper again. “You haven't been classified, yet. That's quite unusual. Especially for someone your age.”

Erik's eyes turned hard. He didn't like the sound of that. “Classified for what? What is this place?”

The woman raised her immaculate eyebrows. “You might call it the afterlife. Although, technically, you're still stuck in transit.”

Erik shot her a disbelieving look, but the woman just stared him down, unimpressed.

“Do you need a moment to adjust?” she asked. “It says here that you were aware in the moment of your death, but we know it can be difficult to accept for some people.”

“I don't need— I know I died,” Erik snarled, glaring at her now.

The sound of someone softly clearing their throat came from behind him, and when he turned around, he came face to face with yet another woman. This one looked the complete opposite from the blonde: short and round and approachable. She wore simple white pants and tunic that were set off against the dark color of her skin, and her hair was woven into a myriad of little braids. But the biggest difference was her smile, which looked genuine, as if she was truly glad to see him. Erik regarded her suspiciously.

“Don't worry, Erik,'' the woman said with a warm timbre in her voice. “I will explain everything you need to know.”

“And who are you?”

“I'm your handler.”

*

Not knowing what else to do, Erik followed the woman up a sweeping staircase and then down a hall, their steps reverberating in the silence. Finally, she led him into what looked like an old-fashioned office with dark wood paneling and floors. This room, too, was bereft of anything but the basic furniture: A heavy desk with two high-backed, carved chairs and a grandfather clock in the corner that was stuck at a quarter past twelve.

The woman sat down behind the desk and gestured to the chair opposite her. Erik gave her a long, searching look but then settled down, waiting to see what this was all about.

“I know you have a lot of questions,” the woman said kindly. “But please understand that I have only so many answers to give.”

Erik leaned back in his chair with his arms crossed and remained silent, regarding her steadily as she rested her folded hands on the gleaming surface of the desktop.

“You're a difficult case for us,” she told him. “Full of contradictions. You brought suffering on to others and yet you have suffered yourself more than most could bear. You saved lives, and you took lives. What’s more, is that it wasn't supposed to be your time. The order of things has been disturbed. So we have decided to grant you the opportunity to prove yourself.”

“Prove myself to whom?” Erik asked with a snide curl of his mouth.

Warm brown eyes regarded him quietly. “That is only for you to know.”

Erik shook his head with a disgusted look. “Is that all you can offer me? Platitudes and mystic nonsense?”

The woman sat back in her chair with a sigh. “I understand that your life has taught you distrust above all else, but what we're offering you is a second chance.”

“And if I’m not interested?”

“Then I’m sorry to say that you will find out that it's not so much an offer as it is a task.”

“What task?”

“You will be send back, but not the way you were. You may think of it as a Malakh.”

“You want to make me an angel?” Erik asked. The idea seemed completely absurd.

“A guardian, more precisely.”

“I really don't think I'm cut out for that,” Erik said. “I lack the wings and the halo, for one thing.”

“You're better equipped than you know, Erik.” The woman gave him an almost sad smile. “What else you need, we will provide. It's up to you to use it wisely.”

Erik shook his head with a disbelieving snort. He had never heard so much bullshit in his life. “Okay. Let’s say I bite. Who is the hapless idiot then? The one I'm supposed to look after?”

Now the woman smirked. “Oh, I’m certain you'll know it once you see him.”

*

The shock of impact made Erik stumble, and he had to brace himself, crouching with one hand splayed against the ground, cold and rough beneath his palm. He was bathed in a blinding light and only faintly registered the screeching noise that was quickly coming closer. Raising a hand to shield his eyes, he pushed himself up on his feet, right in front of the car that skidded to a stop barely a yard away from his legs.

Erik looked around himself, disoriented. He was in the middle of the road, in the middle of nowhere. All he could make out in the darkness were the shadowy shapes of trees. He had no idea how he had come to be here, what had happened, whether it had all been a vivid dream or whether he had truly died, just to be, what... dumped back on earth?

His attention was drawn back to the car, when the door on the driver side opened. Squinting against the headlights, Erik watched a man get out and then brace himself against the side of the car before he took a step forwards, slowly, as if he wasn't certain it was a good idea to approach Erik. After another tentative step, the glow of the headlights fell on him, and Erik gasped.

“Charles.”

Charles just stared at him as if he was seeing a ghost, as if the sight of Erik was something horrible and painful. An endless moment passed in which Charles didn’t move. Then he bridged the distance between them with a few staggering strides, and before Erik knew what was happening, Charles had grabbed him by the lapels of his jacket and pulled him forward, crushing their mouths together in a desperate and brutal kiss.

Stunned, Erik only took a moment to kiss back. It might not have been their first kiss, but it certainly felt like it after too many years of trying and failing to forget about that one night, that one moment Erik had gone for broke and ended up broken. But just when his arms came up to draw Charles closer, just when he was about to lean into that firm and compact warmth, pull became push, causing him to stumble backwards. Charles still stared at him in wide-eyed disbelief and, to a certain degree, Erik could relate.

He lifted a hand to his mouth as if he could capture the impression of Charles' lips against them that way. “Well,” he said, swallowing hard. “That was new.”

Charles eyes narrowed and then he surged forward again, but this time it wasn't his mouth that slammed into Erik, it was his fist.

Erik staggered, tasting blood, and turned to his old friend with angrily raised eyebrows. “This, on the other hand, feels quite familiar.”

“What,” Charles gasped, sounding as if he was drowning, “are you doing here?”

He was shaking. His hands balled into fists and his chest was heaving. His breath escaped in huge, white plumes against the cold of the night, and glittering crystals caught in the strands of hair falling into his face.

Erik realized it had started to snow. “I'm not entirely sure,” he said warily.

“You're dead, Erik!” Charles spat, spittle flying from the corner of his mouth and his eyes burning with accusation.

Erik winced. “It already made the news, did it?”

Charles looked at him as if he had grown three heads. “The news? Erik, you died five years ago!”

 

 

*

“That’s absurd,” Erik said for probably the third time now, pacing in front of Charles in the beam of the headlights.

Charles had his arms crossed in front of him. The collar of his winter coat was turned up and he looked as if he was trying to vanish inside of it.

“Third of November 1974. At fourteen minutes past midnight. I know this so precisely, because I felt it.”

Erik glanced at him from the corner of his eye. He remembered prying off his helmet, but he had not truly believed it would make a difference. It had been a foolish impulse — the almost ritualistic wish existing in every man to not die alone. It had not worked. When the blackness had taken him, Erik had not felt Charles’ presence.

“It woke me up.” Charles swallowed and didn't meet his eyes. “I tried to reach out but you were...”

He didn't finish that sentence but he didn't need to. Erik had been gone. He didn't know what to say, and when the silence stretched out between them, Charles finally looked up.

“What happened to you, Erik?”

How to explain to Charles what he still struggled to accept and understand himself? In the end he simply said, “I died.”

Charles snorted, but it didn't sound amused. “Maybe you're just the product of my imagination, after all. Proof that Hank is right, and I need to sleep more and work less.”

Erik pulled a face when he heard that name. “Still listening to Hank's expertise, are you?”

“Really? That's all you've got to say?”

“I've got a great deal more to say, but I doubt you'd listen all of a sudden.”

“I can't deal with this,” Charles muttered, shaking his head. “Not again. It's been a long day and my toes are freezing off, which isn't as interesting an experience as I remember.”

He turned back to his car, stumbling but making his way to the open driver's door without a backwards glance. For a moment Erik didn't know what to do. It was the middle of the night. He was stranded. And even though he didn't really feel the cold, he didn't fancy a walk into the next town —wherever that was.

“You don't mind giving me a ride, do you?” he called, trying to sound casual as he made his way around the car.

Charles froze and shot him a look over his shoulder. He seemed to hesitate for a second, but then gave a curt nod and climbed into the driver's seat.

*

“So,” Erik said after the first few miles had passed by in silence. “Are we going to talk about that kiss?”

“No.”

Erik nodded. It wasn't like he had truly expected anything else. “How about the fact that you're walking again?”

Charles only grit his teeth and said nothing.

Erik turned away with a quiet huff and stared out at the moving scenery in the darkness beyond the car windows. “I guess some things never change.”

“No,” Charles bit out. “I guess they don't.”

“Where are we going anyway?” Erik asked when the tense silence got too oppressive.

“Princeton. I'm holding a lecture there tomorrow.”

“Back to being a professor?”

“Among other things. I'm speaking on the future of mutantism and the advantages for our society.”

Erik snorted. “And you think people will listen to that?”

Charles shot him a look. “You'd be surprised. Things have changed.”

“I thought we had just established that they don't.”

“Just because we seem incapable of it, doesn't mean the world won't keep turning.”

He sounded bitter, but at least he wasn't putting the sole blame on Erik this time around. Charles had never liked to face his own failings and lesser qualities. Erik wondered why he had been put in Charles' path again for this ominous task he was expected to accomplish. Was this what they had meant with proving himself? Was he perhaps supposed to prove himself to Charles? Something inside him balked at that idea.

He contemplated just ignoring what had happened. To go back to his mission. Make a difference the way he had been trying to do before a building collapsed on him. Wasn't that what he had been told? That it had not been his time, yet? Didn't that mean he still had a purpose to fulfill?

Lost in his thoughts, he only belatedly realized that the car had stopped and Charles was getting out, handing the keys to a valet. They were parked in front of an upscale hotel, the sort Erik knew Charles preferred because, as much as he liked to deny it, he was a rich snob at heart. He got out and followed Charles up to the entrance and into the lobby.

It was late, although not as late as he had initially suspected, and there were a few guests still milling about, but Charles made his way to the reception desk straight away.

“Hello. I'm Professor Charles Xavier. I believe my assistant had a room booked for me in advance.”

The pretty girl behind the desk gave him a measured smile. “Of course, Sir. It's room 402, on the top floor. We'll have your luggage brought up. Is there anything else I can do for you?”

Charles gave Erik a contemplative look and then turned back to the girl with a sigh. “Yes. There's one thing. I don't suppose you have another room available for my friend here?”

For a moment the girl looked confused but she recovered quickly, glossing over her momentary lapse with an extra bright smile. “There was a second room booked in your name originally, but it has been cancelled this morning. It's still available, though. Should we hold the key for your friend, or would you like to have it now?”

Charles frowned. “No, you can just give it to him.” He gestured towards Erik.

The woman briefly searched the lobby behind Charles, but never made eye-contact with Erik. Her smile had frozen on her face and her gaze turned uncertain. “I'm sorry, Sir,” she stammered, handing Charles two sets of keys. “Here they are.”

Charles glanced at Erik and then back at her with a frown. The girl's smile grew pained and just a little desperate. Charles studied her intensely for another moment but then just thanked her, grabbed the keys and turned towards the elevator. Erik followed.

“She didn't see you,” Charles said once the doors were closing. He sounded angry and accusatory once more.

“That's what I gathered, yes.”

“What is wrong with you, Erik?” Charles growled, rounding on him in the cramped space.

Erik raised his eyebrows. “Haven’t we been through this? I'm dead.”

“Yeah? So you're what? A ghost coming to annoy the hell out of me after five fucking years?”

Erik met Charles glare with one of his own. “I don’t know what crawled up your butt, but I didn't choose this. I was sent back to protect someone. Probably you, for all I know, because it sure looks like you need it!”

Charles’ eyes widened almost comically. “I beg your pardon? I've been getting along perfectly well without you, Erik, thank you very much!”

“Oh, really? Is that why you're still taking that damn serum of Hank's?”

“Occasionally! I had a meeting with government officials in D.C. It was a show of good faith—”

“Good faith?” Erik couldn't believe what he was hearing. “To submit yourself to drugs that turn you into a lesser man is now a show of good faith?”

“Fuck you, Erik,” Charles hissed. “God, I can't believe I actually forgot what an asshole you are. Thank you for the reminder!”

Charles forcefully pushed one of the keys into Erik's chest and turned around just in time for the ping of the elevator, signaling their arrival. There was nothing Erik could do but watch him go as he stormed down the corridor and vanished through one of the doors at the far end.

*

Erik looked down at the key in his hand. Number 401. Right next to Charles'. Of course.

He tried not to think about who had originally planned to accompany Charles, or for what purpose, because, frankly, it wasn’t his business. Still, when letting himself into the room, he couldn’t help but notice the connecting door, although it was of course locked now.

The room itself was posh and modern in understated luxury, with a big bed that looked extremely comfortable. Unfortunately, Erik wasn't tired. For a moment he wondered whether he would even need to sleep anymore, and was grateful to find a well stocked minibar. He stretched out on the duvet with a drink in hand, his back against the headboard, and turned on the TV.

Two hours later he switched it off again, feeling dazed. When Charles had told him that 'things had changed' he had believed that statement to be Charles’ usual wishful thinking, nothing based on facts. After the Sentinel debacle, tension in regard to what was called ‘the mutant issue’ had risen to nearly hysterical levels. Conservatives in Congress were shouting about the threat to national security and proposed obligatory mutant tests and internment camps for those mutants deemed dangerous in the name of ‘keeping the American population safe’. Religious nutcases saw the signs for the upcoming apocalypse, and big corporations were trying to outbid each other to get their hands on ‘mutant technologies’.

On the day he died, Erik had brought down a research facility that masqueraded as a mental institution. Twenty two mutants, some of them children no older than twelve, who had secretly been tested were held in cages and treated like lab rats. Now there was apparently talk of a Mutant Rights Act, and even the demand for registration of mutants faced heavy opposition, among others by the new president of the United States himself.

Erik didn't quite know what to make off it, he didn't trust the humans, wasn’t sure whether he could even trust their news programs, but the only other source of information available to him right now was Charles, who seemed unwilling to speak to him.

God, he wished he had a cigarette right now.

Out of habit, he patted down his pockets and was surprised to find a package in his trousers. Not about to look a gift horse in the mouth, he made for the balcony and stepped out into the bitingly cold night.

At some point, it had stopped snowing. The cloud cover was breaking up to reveal the starry sky, but in the moonless dark, the world remained wrapped in shadows. Lighting up, Erik took a deep drag and rested his forearms on the railing, facing the empty drive and deserted street beyond.

“Can't sleep?”

Startled, Erik looked over to the balcony next door. He hadn’t noticed Charles sitting there, back in his wheelchair and muffled up in his coat and a long woolen scarf. Trying to regain his cool composure, Erik took another drag from his cigarette, and then blew the smoke from the corner of his mouth as he flicked off the ash.

“I might have lost that ability for good,” he said with a sarcastic twist of his lips. “What about you? Trying to freeze your balls off out here?”

“It's not like I have much use for them these days.”

It was too dark to see Charles’ face, but his voice was as dry as it could be. Erik let out a snort and took a last drag before he dropped the butt and ground it out with his foot. Silence settled over them. Erik was quite aware that small talk of any kind was not his forte, and a mixture of pride and uncertainty kept him from voicing all the questions that were burning his tongue.

Just when it looked as if this would be the end to their conversation, Charles said, “There's a chess set in my room. Maybe you would care for a game?”

There was something in his voice, something almost painful, and Erik tried to steel himself against it, but Charles had always been able to get to him.

Erik shot him a wry look. “For old time's sake?”

For a moment Charles remained silent, then he said quietly, “If that’s all we have.”

*

Charles’ room was slightly bigger and had more space for a man in a wheelchair to move. There was also a corner with an armchair and a low table, and it was there Erik settled down in a position that was much too reminiscent of their time before Cuba. Then Charles put the chess board down in front of him. It was a travel set and looked decidedly familiar. Erik blinked and raised a questioning eyebrow.

“It doesn’t take up much space,” Charles said attempting to sound casual and failing. “You never know when one might need some entertainment.”

It was a rather flimsy excuse, but Erik refrained from commenting on it. Charles had given him White to play and so he made his opening move before he settled back with his legs crossed, regarding Charles in silent expectation.

Charles wasn’t looking at the board, though. Erik wasn’t even sure he had registered his move. He was still staring at Erik.

“What?”

“No, it's just…” Charles broke off. His composure seemed like a thin veneer, barely covering the broiling chaos of emotions that bubbled up to the surface whenever his control wavered. “Your mind. I can feel it, I know it's _you_ , but I can't read it.”

He swallowed and then glanced down at the game before he reached out to move a pawn with shaking fingers.

Erik frowned. “Maybe your telepathy hasn’t completely recovered yet.”

Charles shook his head. “No. I’d be perfectly able to read the rest of the hotel guests, if I were so inclined.”

“So what, you think I’m a hallucination?”

Charles didn’t smile.

“Do you have a better explanation?” he asked.

Erik hesitated. He didn’t know how to explain and felt reluctant to reveal information that he himself still wanted to reject, but he had never been good at lying to Charles, who looked at him with barely concealed desperation. Erik dropped his eyes to the board, as if he was contemplating his next move.

“Have you ever heard of ‘Malakhim’?” he finally asked, trying to sound casual.

When Charles didn’t respond right away, Erik looked up and met Charles’ disbelieving eyes.

“Are you telling me that you’re an angel? Forgive me, Erik, if that’s a little hard to believe. And not only from a scientific standpoint.”

“It’s all I can tell you.”

For a moment they stared at each other, then Charles shook his head.

“That still doesn’t— Why now? After five years?”

There was a pained twist around Charles’ mouth, as if he was trying to smile but couldn’t quite make it work.  
“It hasn’t been that long for me.”

“How long then?”

“I don’t know. A day, I guess?”

Charles let out a hollow laugh.

“Charles...” Erik sighed in frustration. “Nothing of this makes sense to me either. I don’t have any better answers. Why don’t you tell me what happened?”

The look Charles gave him was a strange mixture of grief, exasperation and, possibly, affection. “You happened, Erik. At least that’s where it all started.”

*

“So you’re saying that the media has turned me into some sort of hero figure.” Erik regarded Charles disbelievingly. “Last time I checked, I was still the most wanted man in the United States.”

“People are a lot more forgiving of the dead. And you saved twenty-two people, nine of them children, who were being tortured and experimented upon.”

Erik scoffed. “I saved mutants and mutant children.”

“Whatever you might think, Erik, the majority of the population doesn't condone what was done to them.”

Erik couldn’t help but think of trains full of people—men, women and children penned up like cattle—on their way to be slaughtered and disposed of. Piles of bodies. Piles of clothes. Of shoes. Of _hair_ and _teeth_. In his experience, the majority simply didn’t want to see what was right in front of them. And the rest didn’t care.

“You left a crater the size of two football fields in the middle of an American city. The evidence was hard to ignore, and it sparked a lot of outrage, raised a lot of questions. The atmosphere in regard to mutants is changing. People see that mutants are the victims, not the aggressors.”

There was that old enthusiasm and energy in Charles’ voice. But it was also the same blind optimism of a man who had not seen the darkest corruption and cruelty humans were capable of —unlike Erik.

“You mean they perceive us as weak,” he said bitterly. “Is that why you suppress your mutation for the comfort of some human politicians?”

“I’m hardly your average mutant. My telepathy understandably makes people nervous and even paranoid. If it helps them to trust me and their own thoughts and emotions, it’s not much of a sacrifice. It’s only for a day after all.”

“So they’re not willing to trust you but expect you to trust them. And you’re accommodating them, making yourself vulnerable in the process.”

Charles made a frustrated sound. “What’s your alternative, Erik? Fighting a war? Killing people? Does that give those children you saved a better future?” He held up his hand to stall any answer that might have been forthcoming. “No. You know what, let’s not. Could we just… not fight for one evening? It’s been a long— It’s been a long day.”

Erik drew a deep breath through his nose. Everything inside of him wanted to argue, to make Charles see what he was doing, but Charles truly did look tired. And so, in the end, he nodded, conceding Charles’ point.

*

For a while they just played. Erik tried to concentrate on the game, on anticipating Charles’ strategy, trying to hide his smile when he recognized a particular gambit, but there was one thought circling in his mind that Erik was unable to shake. When Charles took a moment longer to think on his next move, Erik finally gave in.

“So you felt it… me… in the end?” He stumbled over the words and wanted to kick himself for it, but there was nothing to it now.

Charles, who had been about to reach out to his rook, halted. His eyes found Erik’s.

“I did. I admit I was…” he trailed off, seemingly searching for words but unable to find them.

He’d been what? Surprised? Shocked? Appalled?

“I’m sorry if I caused you pain,” Erik said stiffly. “I wasn’t exactly thinking clearly, but I know Shaw’s death was—”

“No.”

Erik stopped, unsure at the sudden sharpness of Charles’ tone.

“No, it was... it was not like that. Shaw’s death was violent, panicked, like he was clawing at me to get out—” Closing his eyes, Charles took a deep breath before he continued more softly, “You… With you, it was something completely different. I was glad you took it off. In the end. You know I’ve always hated that thing.”

“Then why did you leave it?” Erik asked, unable to hide a trace of bitterness.

He had left his helmet for _Charles_. It had been a stupid gesture, a reckless show of trust, but Charles had rejected it. In the days and weeks after Washington, Erik had waited for Charles to reach out to him, but he never had. Three months later, Erik had broken into the safe of a government facility, looking for evidence on a project called ‘Weapon X’, only to find his helmet, right there in the hands of _humans_.

“Precisely because of that,” Charles said darkly. “I didn’t want anything to do with it.”

“Instead, you left it to our enemies. Because it’s a great idea to give them the perfect defense against you.”

Charles raised his eyebrows. “I don’t see myself as a weapon, Erik.”

Erik shook his head and got up, running his hand through his hair In agitation. How could Charles be so smart and yet be so incredibly naive? Taking a deep breath, Erik turned around, fixing Charles with unwavering eyes. “Maybe you don’t. But _they do_.”

Charles just looked at him with that sadly disappointed expression, as if it was Erik’s fault that the world was the way it was and not the way that Charles wanted it to be.

“I need another smoke,” he said, making his way towards Charles’ balcony. If he didn’t, he might say something he’d regret. Again.

He lit up as soon as the door had closed behind him. It wasn’t the nicotine he craved; he probably had just as little need for that as he seemed to have for sleep or warmth, and he had never been an avid smoker anyway. Erik had always disliked the idea of being dependent on anyone or anything. Maybe it was just that it made him feel... _human_. He was quite aware of the irony.

Out here, alone in the dark, Erik could admit that he felt lost. His life was over. He was dead. And apparently invisible to anyone but Charles. As much as death had always seemed to follow him like a second shadow, Erik had never truly thought about what it meant: To be gone, and for the world to keep turning without you.

The cigarette burned down to ash between his fingers, and Erik knew he had stayed outside long enough for it to be counted as rude. Luckily, Charles had always been rather forgiving when Erik’s temper got the best of his manners.

He took a last deep breath of the cold night air and stepped back inside. When Charles didn’t move to acknowledge him, Erik slowly walked closer and saw that he had fallen asleep in his chair. His head was lolling to the side in what looked like a pretty uncomfortable position that would certainly give him a stiff neck by morning, never mind that it probably wasn’t a good idea to sleep like this in regard to his legs and back either. Erik squatted down in front of Charles’ chair and looked up at the slack face. Even in his sleep Charles looked exhausted.

Something throbbed in Erik’s chest, something he didn’t quite like to acknowledge, and so he got back up and then bent to carefully slide one arm under Charles’ knees and the other one behind his back. Lifting Charles was surprisingly easy, and he didn’t wake as Erik carried him over to the bed and laid him down in the middle of it. He grabbed a blanket and spread it over him, but hesitated, suddenly unsure if there was anything else Charles needed. The truth was that Erik didn’t know. Didn’t know anything about the mundane tasks that had become part of Charles’ life when Erik ceased to be.

Charles’ breaths were calm and deep. There was no reason to stay, really, and yet Erik couldn’t make himself leave. He stood next to the bed, with his arms hanging limply by his sides, staring down at Charles’ sleeping form. There were new lines around his mouth and at the corner of his eyes. A few strands of gray in his slowly thinning hair. And his mouth was still too full and red to be considered decent.

Erik had never really allowed himself regrets, but right there, in the dead of the night, in some anonymous hotel room, he couldn’t help but wish that one thing in his life had gone differently.

*

Over the next hours, Erik was able to confirm the theory of his non-existing need for sleep. He was wide awake while the world around him slumbered. Even the night porter was dozing off, although he probably wouldn’t have noticed Erik walking past him either way.

 _No one_ noticed Erik. Not the news vendor when he opened his store, and Erik took over an hour to study the papers right in front of him. Not the lady, wrapped up in a thick winter cloak, walking her dog in the park when Erik passed her by. Nor the taxi driver, waiting for a guest in front of the hotel entrance, smoking a cigarette and bobbing up and down on his feet to keep warm.

It was a strange experience. It gave him the freedom to go wherever he wanted and do whatever he pleased, but it also kept him on the outside, disconnected from the world. Erik had known loneliness, but never like this.

He returned to the hotel once the sun was cresting over the horizon, because what else was there for him to do? Whatever their differences, Charles was the only person Erik could still talk to. He was like his sole anchor in this new and confusing non-life and at the same time, the obvious subject of Erik’s responsibility. Charles might not want to believe it, but from Erik’s perspective he certainly needed protection.

*

Erik didn’t have to search long before he found Charles in the breakfast room, sipping his tea wrapped in an abominable tweed jacket and an air of misery. After a detour to grab some coffee, Erik walked over to his table and sat down opposite from Charles with a questioning look.

Charles nearly dropped his tea cup. In fact, he set it down with so much force that half of the content spilled over, soaking the table cloth. He didn’t seem to notice. Instead his face broke out into an expression so full of relief and elation that Erik was taken aback for a moment.

“So it wasn’t a dream after all.” Charles let out a breathless laugh that caused a woman two tables over to shoot him a look that clearly questioned Charles' sanity.

“I’m afraid not,” Erik said, taking a sip from his coffee.

Charles fervently shook his head. There was still that painfully bright smile on his face, but he lowered his voice in an attempt to not draw any more attention.

“No, my friend. Please, whatever else you might think, don’t doubt that I’m happy to see you.”

Erik raised a skeptical eyebrow, but Charles wasn’t deterred.

“When I thought you were gone,” he continued soft but insistent. “I grieved for you.”

The open vulnerability in Charles’ eyes made something warm unfurl inside Erik’s chest, and he couldn’t keep the smile from spreading on his face—probably the first true smile since he’d been put back on earth.

“Maybe saying that makes me an asshole,” he remarked. “But I’m glad to hear that.”

Erik had the feeling that Charles wanted to say more, almost as if he was fighting some internal battle with himself. In the end, he went on to hide his face behind his tea cup.

“So. What are you going to do now?” he asked, sounding calm, but the left thumb drumming against the side of the cup gave him away.

Deciding to accept the change of topic for now, Erik leaned back in his chair with a shrug and stretched his long legs out under the table.

“You’re holding a lecture today, aren’t you?” he asked. “I’m prepared to be educated on the topic.”

“I actually meant more on the long term.” Charles paused, looking torn when he glanced back at Erik. “Hank is going to pick me up after the lecture to take me back home. To the mansion.”

As if Erik could have possibly forgotten where ‘ home’ was for Charles. And of course it was Hank who had to play the glorified taxi driver.

“You’d think he has better things to do,” Erik muttered.

“Oh, you know Hank. He always worries.”

“Of course.” Erik barely refrained from rolling his eyes. “Well, I’ll be coming with you then.”

Charles stared at him like a deer caught in the headlights. It was an unflattering look for him.

“I’m not sure that’s a good idea.”

“I am. I’ve obviously been put in your path for a reason.”

It was Charles’ turn to roll his eyes. “What ever you might think, I’m not in danger. I’m sure there’s a lot of work out there for angels, but I really don’t have need for one.” He bit his lip and then glanced at his watch with a sigh. “Anyway, I have to go now. There should be a taxi waiting for me already.”

“There is. Guy’s out front, probably freezing his toes off.”

Charles looked at him alarmed. “Oh. How incredibly rude of me.”

He quickly drained his cup and pushed his wheelchair back from the table. Erik, who got up as well, waited for Charles to lead the way and then followed him in silence.

“Are you really interested in the lecture?” Charles asked once they had left the breakfast room behind.

“Very.”

Charles was, after all, one of the most intelligent men Erik had ever met and an eloquent speaker on top of that. He had no idea why Charles would have doubts about Erik wanting to hear what he had to say, especially on a mutant related topic, and yet Charles looked up at him in obvious surprise.

“What? Just because I mostly disagree with you, doesn’t mean that you don’t make some interesting points. You draw the wrong conclusions from the right arguments, but if what you say made no sense at all, I wouldn’t even bother to argue with you.”

Charles shook his head, trying to hide his smile, but Erik could hear it in his voice when he said, “I don’t know whether to feel flattered or insulted.”

They were just leaving the hotel, making their way towards the waiting cab, and Erik grinned down at Charles, a teasing remark on his lips, when he sensed something deeply disconcerting. The taxi driver was holding a gun.

“Charles.”

Erik stopped in his tracks, reaching down to grab Charles by the shoulder.

“What?”

“Your driver has a gun. He has just put it in the glove compartment.”

“Yeah?” Charles was obviously and frustratingly unconcerned about this. “Well, from what I hear, being a cab driver is a dangerous profession.”

“And why would he pull it out just before you’re about to get in his car?”

“There could be a million innocent reasons.”

“Name one.”

Charles sighed and then pushed himself on, out of Erik’s grasp and towards the cab. “Really, Erik, you’re being ridiculous. I told you, no one’s out to get me. This man has not one homicidal thought about me.”

Erik frowned. He knew that Charles was better equipped than most to recognize a threat due to his telepathy, but Erik couldn’t help but think that whoever wanted to harm Charles would know that and take it into account.

When they stopped beside the cab, the driver got out. He looked tense, Erik thought, which was highly suspicious. When he told Charles as much, Charles, of course, ignored him like he ignored any good advice.

After the man had opened the door for Charles, he stood back not offering any further assistance, but luckily Charles was quite able to hoist his body out of his chair himself. Still, getting into a car wasn’t easy for him and the driver was being extremely rude, which didn’t endear him any more to Erik. And of course, once Charles had settled on the backseat, there was still his chair to take care of, but the driver just gave it an annoyed look.

Erik, who had gotten in on the other side, glared at the man, then flicked his fingers and the chair folded up. Another wave of his hand, and the trunk sprang open so that he could float it gently inside, closing the lid behind it. Charles gave him an admonishing look, but Erik just shrugged unapologetically.

“He’ll think it’s another of your mutant powers.”

“He’s nervous enough as it is,” Charles hissed from the corner of his mouth, and then gave the driver a friendly smile, which the man ignored as he got behind the wheel.

“That’s probably because he’s a bigoted mutant hater.”

Charles did neither deny nor confirm the assumption, but that was answer enough for Erik, who melted the glove compartment shut for good measure. Better safe than sorry.

Because Charles didn’t know a lost cause when it spat him in the face, he tried to engage the driver into a conversation, but the man only answered with monosyllabic grunts if at all. Thankfully, they were already close to campus, so the journey didn’t take long.

At the university, things progressed much more smoothly. Charles was greeted by not one but two department heads, who seemed to be bending over backwards to make him feel welcome. Erik still gave them a dark look, which of course was completely lost to them but inexplicably made Charles smile. One of them, a woman in her late forties, was talking a mile a minute, gesticulating excitedly as they escorted Charles to the lecture hall while Erik trailed in their wake unseen. When they arrived at the lecture hall with its carved wooden beams and Gothic windows, it was bursting at the seams with students who erupted into enthusiastic applause once Charles was announced as one of the nation’s most famous mutant leaders.

Erik wasn’t deterred by that display. He stretched his awareness, searching for anything metal in the room that could be a weapon, and only settled back against the door when he was certain there was no imminent threat.

After the usual pleasantries, Charles began his lecture, taking a position right in front of the small podium which was only accessible by a set of stairs. Erik had always admired Charles’ captivating presence. He didn’t use any props, and he didn’t have any notes. He spoke freely, addressing the crowd as if he was talking to each and everyone one of them personally—almost intimately. And the crowd listened with rapt attention.

“I want to start today with a simple question,” he said, spreading his hands. “What is a mutant? As many of your probably know, mutation is the driving force behind all life on the planet. They occur all the time and often we don’t even realize it because the consequences are negligible. If it has any effect and the mutation proves advantageous, natural selection will make sure it’s passed on.”

Here Charles paused and let his gaze travel over the audience.

“Now, I know you will say, 'that’s not what we talk about when we talk about mutants’. And it's true. That's not what we talk about when we ask whether mutants deserve the same basic human rights, or whether they even should be counted as humans. What we talk about is an ever growing group of people who have a specific set of mutations, often misnamed as the as the ‘X-Gene’. Although it’s of course not a single gene, but a larger area in the human genome where many mutations are concentrated. Mutations that lead to things like hightened senses, exaggerated strength or extraordinary abilities.

“My point, though, is that mutants are not a group that stands separate from you. We come from you. We are part of you. Chances are good that your kids or grandkids will be mutants. And wouldn’t that be wonderful? We all want the best for our children. The best education, the best health care. Just imagine your child would be able to heal itself—an ability that occurs in the X spectrum. We celebrate medical advancement, why shouldn’t we celebrate evolutionary advancement just the same?

“Evolutionary change usually occurs over a long time, but our world is changing faster than ever before and there are theories that this leads to an increase in mutations—extraordinary mutations—that will help our species to survive.

“So there’s really nothing stupider than Senator Kelly’s ideas to ban marriage and even sexual relationships between mutants and non-mutants.” Charles enthusiastic expression turned into a mask of contempt. “I don’t even want to get into the fact that it’s a disgusting and hateful concept to legalize who someone is allowed to love and marry. It’s what the Nazis did with the Jews, and we here in America have rightfully done away with the ban on interracial marriage. But apart from it being morally wrong, it also makes no scientific sense. Most mutants today are still born to non-mutant parents. And while it’s right that having a mutant parent increases the chance of a mutant child considerably, this only shows that in regard to selection, a mutation on the X spectrum is especially advantageous. Now let me tell you how we know this…”

Erik tuned out while Charles explained the basic biological concepts that Erik was already familiar with. Instead, he took the time to study the audience, most of whom were listening avidly, obviously engaged by Charles passion and charm. Although two girls in the front row seemed too busy flicking their hair and leaning forward to present their ample cleavages to hear what Charles was saying.

Erik rolled his eyes and pushed off the door to casually stroll down the aisle to the back of the lecture hall. It wasn’t as if anyone could see him. Well, anyone but Charles. Glancing over his shoulder, he saw that Charles’ eyes were following him and raised his eyebrows, smirking back at him. Charles floundered for a second and then quickly turned away, proceeding to ignore Erik. But Erik would have none of it. He wandered back to the front and stopped next to Charles’ adoring fangirls, nodding at them with a teasing look. Charles glared at him and Erik chuckled while the girls turned red as the proverbial tomatoes, probably thinking that the glare had been directed at them..

When Erik came to lean against the podium next to Charles with his legs stretched out in front of him, Charles took a moment to quietly hiss from the corner of his mouth, “Could you please sit down?”

“What?” Erik asked innocently, doing no such thing. “Am I distracting you, Charles?”

“Not at all,” Charles replied, but Erik could see a telltale blush creep up the back of Charles’ neck and laughed in delight.

For the rest of the lecture, Erik pulled himself together and remained where he was, although he couldn’t resist making a few sarcastic remarks now and then, enjoying the fact that no one but Charles could hear them.

“God, you’re such an ass,” Charles whispered under his breath when they left the lecture hall two hours later.

“You knew that from the moment you met me,” Erik said, and caught Charles’ smile even though he didn’t deign Erik with a reply.

*

Erik’s good mood persisted until they left the building through a side entrance and he saw Hank McCoy waiting outside. Hank stood with his hands buried in the pockets of his jacket and his shoulders pulled up, as if he was expecting to be questioned on his reasons to be there any second. As soon as he saw Charles, a relieved smile spread over his face and he came rushing towards him, waving like a lunatic. Erik rolled his eyes. Sometimes he wondered whether ‘Puppy’ would have been a more appropriate name for Hank instead of ‘Beast’.

“Don’t look so grumpy,” Charles whispered as they made their way to the parking space.

“Oh.” Hank, who had been walking slightly ahead, stopped and looked at Charles taken aback. “I’m sorry. I didn’t realize—”

Charles eyes widened comically. “No, no!” He waved his hand in the air and sent Hank a bright and reassuring smile. “I wasn’t— I was talking to myself.”

Erik raised an amused eyebrow at him.

“Oh shut up, no one’s talking to you,” Charles hissed.

Hank shot him a surprised and rather wounded look that made Charles wince.

“Superior mutant hearing,” Erik supplied helpfully.

Charles glared at him before he leaned over and patted Hank on the arm. “I’m sorry, Hank, I haven’t slept well, or much at all to be honest.”

He let his hand rest there for a moment and Hank brightened.

“I can give you something to help with that when we’re back home, if you’d like,” he offered.

“No, he wouldn't!” Erik glared at the back of Hank's head although he was quite aware that Hank couldn’t hear him.

Charles, of course, could. “Yes, I would,” he said and smirked at Erik. “That would be very kind of you, Hank. Thank you.”

“Don’t you think you’ve played lab rat for Hank enough as it is?” Erik asked, and Charles’ smile fell.

“I know I’m in very good hands with you, Hank,” he said pointedly, which made Hank blush to the top of his roots while Erik sent Charles a disgusted look.

When they reached the car, Charles sat in the passenger seat and Erik could only squeeze in the back, feeling a bit foolish. Charles mostly ignored him, talking to Hank and asking after the school and several people Erik had never heard of, while Hank inquired after Charles' time in Washington, where he had apparently talked to several senators as well as given witness in front of the Supreme Court. Erik had not known that and wondered what the case could have been, but knew that asking Charles right now would be redundant.

He mostly spent the two hours long drive staring out the window, feeling left out and trying to ignore the adoring looks Hank would shoot in Charles’ direction, which Charles answered with his ever indulging smiles. By the time they turned into the drive of the mansion, Erik’s mood had soured considerably.

When they stopped in front of the side entrance and Hank got out muttering, “Just give me a second”, Erik couldn’t resist any longer. He flipped the trunk open with his power, only for Charles to turn around in alarm, hissing, “Stop it!”

“What?” Erik asked, raising his eyebrows in the most condescending way he knew how to.

“Hank is not a random taxi driver! He knows that I don’t have telekinetic powers!”

“And is there any special reason you don’t want him to know about me?”

For a moment Charles looked taken aback. He obviously had never considered the possibility of telling anyone about Erik. “He wouldn’t believe me,” he finally said with reluctance. “He would think I’m making you up.”

“Really? That’s a pretty harsh assessment, considering that he seems to believe that the sun is shining out of your...” Erik trailed off, raising his eyebrows meaningfully and dropping his gaze to the level of Charles’ seat.

Charles’ glare took on epic dimensions, and was only outdone by his blush. “There’s no need to be crude. Just— Just trust me that it’s for the best if no one else knows.”

Erik opened his mouth to tell Charles that he wasn’t in the habit of trusting other people’s judgment, but in that moment Hank opened the passenger door, pushing Charles’ chair forward so that he could lift himself into it. Erik watched Charles in what was obviously a well practiced routine, but stayed right there in the backseat himself. He didn’t like how this was going, feeling superfluous and unwelcome and, really, why was he even here? Surely there were better things for him to do than trailing after Charles who—despite his words this morning—didn’t seem to be all that keen on Erik’s presence.

When Erik finally got out with a put upon sigh, the door to the mansion opened and a horde of teenagers poured out, shouting and laughing and shoving each other.

“Professor! Professor!”

“How was the meeting?”

“Professor, I managed to hit the target during my last lessons! Three times!”

“That’s wonderful, Scott!”

“And I made it rain last night!”

“Yeah, but it’s been raining all week anyway...”

“Shut up, Bobby! I totally made it rain harder!”

“It’s good to have you back, Professor!”

Charles smiled and praised and clapped backs while pushing himself towards the entrance. But when the kids stepped back to make a path for him, Erik caught sight of another boy standing by the gate, this one much younger. Erik was not even sure he was old enough to attend school. The boy was hanging back, as if he was uncertain of his welcome or just didn’t know how to approach Charles when he was besieged by all the older kids.

Charles, who had seen him, too, was smiling at him warmly. “David. How are you?”

The boy, David, seemed to shrink in on himself when he was addressed and promptly turned to run back into the house. Charles sighed.

“He seems young,” Erik remarked curiously as he came up behind Charles. “What are his powers?”

Most mutants only came into their powers at the onset of puberty, but some—mostly visible— mutations were evident from the start. Erik had not been able to detect anything in the boy’s appearance, though.

“We don’t know yet,” Charles said quietly, which earned him some questioning looks from those around him.

“Then he was tested as a mutant by the government?” Erik had to swallow back bile at the thought of someone so young and vulnerable in a place like the one he had given his life to destroy.

“No,” Charles muttered irritably under his breath, obviously wishing Erik would just shut up. “We don’t know yet whether he’s a mutant.”

“Then what’s he doing here?” Erik asked —because he had never given a crap what people wished he would do.

Charles drew a deep breath. “He’s my son.”

Hank squeezed Charles’ shoulder comfortingly. “It’s going to be fine. Give him some time, I’m sure he’ll come around.”

Erik had no idea what Hank was talking about, and he didn’t really care. His ears were ringing and he felt as if someone had punched him in the gut. What the hell? Charles had a son? How could he have a son?

But, of course, it had been five years, and apparently Charles had wasted no time.

Erik balled his hands into fists and watched the others vanish inside the house. Charles shot him a quick look over his shoulder, probably wondering why he didn’t come along, but Erik suddenly had no wish to join Charles and his merry band any longer. He felt like a fool. Charles’ insistence that Erik shouldn’t come with him made perfect sense all of a sudden, but it wasn’t as if Erik could have _known_. You’d really think that some time between _kissing_ Erik and telling him how he had _grieved_ for him, Charles might have found the time to mention that he had also started a quaint little family.

As always, the hurt only fueled Erik’s anger: at Charles, at the powers which had brought him here, at himself. What had he been thinking? He didn’t belong here. He never had.

The sun was grazing the top of the trees on its slow descent towards evening, and Erik stalked off towards the back of the mansion with long, forceful strides. The sight of the lawns, silent and deserted in the clutches of winter, struck Erik with a bitter sense of loss. It was difficult to acknowledge but was never the less there, even after all these years, sitting right in the pit of his stomach. The view was familiar, if distorted by time, almost as if the colors had faded from his memory like from an old photograph. The trees, which had been lush and green, were bare now and the fields covered by a thin coat of frost. But the satellite dish loomed, just like before, huge and imposing, humming in a tune only Erik could hear.

Seventeen years ago, Charles had given him back a beautiful memory. But they had also crafted new ones together that stood out brightly in Erik’s mind. He had thought they had a future together, had felt it at the tips of his fingers before it had all been ripped away as he was kneeling on a sandy beach in Cuba with Charles’ blood on his hands. He had always thought that everything had gone wrong in that moment; only the truth was it had probably gone wrong long before that. Maybe it had never been right, never been what Erik wanted it to be.

Maybe Erik had been a fool from the start.

“Who are you?”

Erik quickly turned around towards the young voice coming from behind him and found the small boy standing there, staring at him. Erik glanced around, but there was no one else.

“Can you see me?” he asked, narrowing his eyes at the boy.

The boy—David, Erik remembered—kept watching him warily, but nodded when Erik raised his eyebrows to emphasize his question. Well, that was unexpected. Why would the boy be able to see him when no one else but Charles could? Was it because they were related? Because he was a child? Erik had no idea.

“I don’t know you,” David said with just a hint of challenge, and then bit his lip and blushed as if he thought he had spoken out of turn.

Erik crossed his arms over his chest and gazed down at him. Now that he was paying attention, he could see Charles in the bright blue eyes and the cupid’s bow mouth.

“I’m an old friend of your father’s.”

“Oh.” The little boy’s brows wrinkled into a frown. “I’ve never seen you before.”

“Well, I’ve been gone for some time.”

“Ah.” David nodded gravely. Which was rather cute, if Erik was honest. “I’ve only lived here for a few weeks.”

Erik frowned. “Where did you live before?”

“With my mom. We were living in another country. It’s called Israel and is very far away from here.”

Once again, this wasn’t what Erik had been expecting to hear. So Charles had a son, but the son had not lived with him until recently. Maybe Erik had been wrong about the quaint little family. He wanted to ask David more questions, but at that moment Hank came around the corner of the house.

“David? What are you doing out here?”

David looked at him with a mixture of defiance and guilt. “I was just talking to Dad’s friend.”

Hank frowned. “What friend? There’s no one out here, everyone’s inside. It’s time for dinner.”

David turned back to Erik with a look of confusion on his face.

“He can’t see me,” Erik explained. “No one but you and your Dad can.”

David’s frown deepened. “Why?”

“I guess you’re special,” Erik said and winked at him.

David’s eyes widened almost comically and then his face lit up with a bright smile, his eyes shining as if had been told that his birthday had come early. Erik couldn’t have kept himself from smiling back if he had wanted to.

Hank just shook his head and held out his hand. “Come on, little guy. Let’s not make the others wait.”

David grabbed Hank’s hand and let himself be led away towards the mansion, but he kept looking back at Erik over his shoulder with a strange sort of longing.

*

Alone again, Erik sat on the stone balustrade and watched as the sunset slowly faded into colors of soft pink and purple. He didn’t fancy hanging around outside for the rest of the night; it felt a little petulant, but on the other hand he was reluctant to go inside when he knew he wasn't really welcome.

It hit home right then, that not only was he an outsider, but that five years had passed without him. He had nowhere else to go, nothing else to do but hang onto Charles who had long moved on. Who was sitting inside now with his friends and colleagues and his students—a bunch of kids, ostracized from society, that had found a secret haven under his roof, where he could feed them all that nonsense of love, peace and understanding that had already been bullshit back in the sixties. There really was no reason for Erik to join them. He wasn't even hungry; another thing he apparently no longer had to concern himself with. But he had to admit that he was curious. And—maybe—feeling just a little bit vindictive.

Back in the days when they were looking for Shaw, they had not held official dinners. On the occasions when they all ate together, they had taken their meals in the kitchen. But Charles had refitted parts of the mansion to better meet the needs of the school and it took Erik a while until he found the right place. It was a weird mixture of formal and practical. The dark wooden paneling and the oil paintings were clashing with modern furniture designed to seat a few dozen students and teachers, although right now there was only a small group of adults seated at the far table. Maybe the students had already eaten.

Charles was sitting at the head, with Hank and Alex to either side of his, and there were three others, a burly man with short-cropped hair, a slender Asian woman and a short blonde, none of whom Erik had seen before. He leaned against the door frame in a slouch, taking the whole scene in and waiting for Charles to notice him. When he didn't, Erik grew impatient and raised his voice, easily rising over the low murmur of the group's table conversation.

“So. Where’s his mother?”

Charles jumped in his seat and nearly knock over his glass, which Erik noted with some satisfaction. He made his way over to the table with his hands casually buried in the pockets of his pants, ignoring Charles' death glare.

“Not now,” Charles hissed through his teeth when Erik was close enough to hear him.

Unfortunately, so was Alex.

“Sorry, what?” he asked from Charles’ right, giving him a confused look.

Charles turned towards him with a broad and completely fake smile. “Headache,” he said, only to have Hank jump in from the other side.

“It might be an after-effect of the serum. If you’d like I can give you another, lighter dose when you go to bed to soften the transition—”

“No!” Erik turned to Charles, frustrated and helpless, but this time Charles only briefly met his eyes and shook his head as well.

“No, thank you, Hank. I think it’s best if I just get it over with.”

“Okay. Although it’s not like you need your telepathy while you’re asleep.”

Erik gave Hank a disbelieving look before he turned back to Charles. “Is he really this much of an idiot?” he asked, pointing at the younger man. “I thought he was supposed to be some sort of genius? Does he not realize what that shit is doing to you?”

Charles dabbed at his mouth with his napkin before putting it down on the table. “I’m sorry,” he said stiffly. “It’s been a long day. I think I’ll retire early tonight. We can discuss everything else tomorrow.”

He pushed away from the table and gave Erik a meaningful and rather scathing look as he passed him. Not that it discouraged Erik to follow him; he’d never dodged a fight with Charles, relishing the opportunity instead.

“We can’t go on like this,” Charles snapped as soon as the door to his study had fallen shut behind the both of them. “I knew it was a bad idea for you to accompany me. I have no idea what you really are or why you’re here, now, when I finally—” He stopped and shook his head. “Then again, maybe I am crazy, talking to myself in my study, who knows?”

“You’re not crazy,” Erik said, rolling his eyes. “At least not more than usual.”

Charles turned around to face him, eyebrows raised. “Why, thank you! That’s very reassuring coming from someone with a penchant for megalomania and an aversion to logical thinking. Although why I ever expected anything like sane decision making from you, I’ll never know, seeing as you were trying to drown yourself out of stubborn idiocy even when I met you.”

It was a low blow, and Erik rounded on Charles. “Just because you’ve never felt that there was a purpose bigger than yourself—”

“Oh no,” Charles cut across him, his voice rising in volume. “You don’t get to play the martyr card with me. Not when you made me take part in murder. Not when you broke my trust. Not when you broke me and then just left me behind!”

“You fucking told me to!” Erik shouted. How predictable of Charles to only ever see himself as the victim. “Do you even remember that? Or that Moira was actually trying to kill me? Do you remember the promise you made me, the evening before, in this very room?”

“Of course I do.”

It was said so quietly that Erik almost missed it, and Charles suddenly looked as if his heart had been ripped right out of his chest. It made Erik falter. What reason—what _right_ —did Charles have to feel like this when it had been him who had rejected Erik and stomped on his heart in the progress? When he had left Erik to rot in prison? Even now, after Erik had died, Charles kept blowing hot and cold with him, and Erik was once again torn between anger, confusion and—ridiculously—hope.

He wanted to grab Charles and shake him. But then he remembered lying in the wreckage of the underground compound. Remembered the regret he had felt that none of them had ever made the effort to truly bridge that gap. What good had their anger and pride done either of them? With a sigh, Erik let himself fall down on the leather settee. His fingers splayed against the smooth, dark fabric, and he was assaulted by a painfully vivid memory cutting through his heart and through his guts.

This right here was where he had kissed Charles. And Charles had kissed him back, enthusiastically, before drawing back.

_“Erik. We can’t—”_

_“I— I apologize. I didn’t mean to offend you.”_

_He hadn’t been able to look at Charles, feeling exposed and embarrassed. He’d been staring at his own hands, helplessly clenching them into fists in his lap while he berated himself for his stupidity. But then Charles had reached out and put his own hand on top of Erik's._

_“No, my friend. You did nothing wrong. In fact, I would love nothing more than to continue this, but I promised Hank to help him with the preparations for tomorrow, and if we don’t stop now, I don’t think I’ll be able to.”_

_The surprise and relief had been exhilarating, even better than the moment he had moved the satellite dish hours earlier._

_“Of course. I can wait. What’s one more day.”_

_They had smiled at each other, and there had been no doubt in Erik’s heart. No worry. How could there be, when Charles looked at him as if Erik was all that he had ever wanted in life? When Charles grabbed him and kissed him again, filthy and perfect? When he pulled back, only to whisper in a hot gush of breath against Erik’s lips, “This is only the beginning. I promise.”_

“You told me that we had a future that night.”

“Because that’s what I believed.”

Erik looked up at him, trying to mask his anguish. “And then you just changed your mind?”

Charles closed his eyes for a moment. “How could we have had a future when you were not willing to trust me?”

“What are you—?”

“You locked me out, Erik. You put that thing on your head and shut the door in my face.”

“I was afraid you’d stop me.” And that would have been the one thing Erik would not have been able to forgive. Or so he had thought.

“Instead you made me take part in killing Shaw.”

“You know there was no way around it. I know you don't want to accept it, but sometimes your ideals don’t match reality. I learned that early on in my life. Do you think the government could have kept Shaw in a cell somewhere? With his kind of power? With his kind of influence? He nearly started a nuclear war. This was the one chance we were going to stop him and his plans.”

“You didn’t kill him because you wanted to stop a nuclear war.”

“No.” Erik pulled a face. “I killed him because he shot my mother, right in front of me, when I couldn’t move a coin. Are you really telling me this monster didn’t deserve to die?”

“Is it really so awful that I didn’t want you to commit murder because of him?”

Erik shook his head. “Charles. I know you have a savior complex, but I spent a decade working for Mossad and hunting Nazis in my past time. Don’t you think it was a bit late for that by then?”

“Maybe I was hoping something had changed. Maybe I was being naive.”

And there it was. Charles admitting what Erik had been telling him for so long. But the satisfaction that Erik had expected didn’t come. Charles looked defeated, and Erik suddenly realized that this wasn’t what he had wanted after all.

The silence that settled over the room was quickly becoming oppressive. Part of Erik wanted to apologize, but it wasn’t that easy. Maybe he should have trusted Charles, but in his own way Charles had not trusted Erik either. Charles had not trusted Erik to make the right choice, and Erik had not trusted Charles to let him make it anyway. And once that inevitable choice was made, Charles had turned away from him.

“Would you have forgiven me, if I had stayed?” Erik asked quietly.

“I wasn’t aware you were seeking forgiveness.”

“I didn’t. Not in that moment. But the question still stands.”

Charles let out a weary sigh. “And what should I have forgiven you, Erik? Killing Shaw? Making me an accomplice? Crippling me?”

“If I remember correctly, you had a few more grievances against me last time. Like taking Raven away from you. Does it make it easier to lay all that blame at my feet?”

“So you don’t feel guilty after all.”

“For crippling you? Of course I do. Even though it was a fucking accident, as you well know. But for taking Raven away from you? No. She was an adult and she made her own decisions. She was never the innocent little girl you wanted to see in her. As for killing Shaw, that was necessary. And I didn’t make you do anything. You could have let him go.”

“And let him kill you?”

“So you made a choice.”

Charles snorted. “God, you’re a bastard.”

“And I keep telling you, that you’ve known that from the start.”

Charles looked at him, his face twisted with emotions too complex for Erik to decipher, but he nodded in acknowledgement.

“I did.”

He pushed himself over to the low cabinet that held his private stock of alcohol, poured himself a drink and knocked it back before he gave Erik a questioning look. Erik inclined his head and Charles refilled his own glass as well as one for Erik.

They migrated towards the chess set as if it was the natural thing to do, and maybe it was. It had always been easier to look past their differences across the checkered board and a surrogate army of chess pieces, and for a while they played in almost companionable silence, with only the occasional remark regarding the game.

“So,” Erik said when the board had been cleared considerably. “Will you tell me how you came by a son?”

Charles raised a sardonic eyebrow. “I’m sure you know how these things work.”

“I just wondered where you’ve hidden the accompanying wife.”

Charles rubbed his eyes and sighed. “There’s no wife. And there never was one. Gabrielle and I… It was a one time thing. Born out of loneliness on my part and curiosity on hers. And too much drink for both of us. I never heard from her again. Then, three months ago, I got word that she had been killed in a bombing in Tel Aviv, and that there was a child. A child she had not told me about, but that apparently was mine. David knew about me, that I was his father, but I'm not sure how much else he has been told. It hasn’t been easy to get him to open up.” Charles let out a frustrated huff. “I don’t even know why I’m telling you this.”

“You couldn't just read his mind?”

Charles gave him a look. “You think that would make him trust me? No. I made that mistake with Raven, I won't make it again.”

Erik didn’t answer right away, pretending to contemplate his next move on the chessboard. “He seems like a good kid. Just a little shy. In need of attention.”

“Of course he’s a good kid,” Charles huffed. “Though I’m not sure how you would know anything about it.”

“I spoke to him for a bit.”

That earned him a sharp look. “What? How?”

“He can see me.”

“Why would—?”

“I don’t know. Maybe he’s part of the reason I’m here.”

“Oh no.” Charles’ face hardened. “No no no no. Not David. You stay away from him, Erik! He’s been through enough.”

“What exactly do you think I’d do to him?” Erik asked indignantly.

He had the urge to laugh at the absurdity of Charles' reaction, but the glacier-like look in Charles’ eyes stopped him.

“I’m serious, Erik. Leave David alone.”

Apparently, not much had changed, after all. Erik felt his features shift into the unreadable mask the world knew as the face of Magneto. He didn’t need his helmet for that.

“Of course,” he said with a snide curl of his mouth, ignoring the leaden weight that settled in his stomach. Instead he picked up his queen with fake indifference, moving it across the board to close the trap he had set up in the past half hour—the one Charles should normally have seen coming.

“Check Mate in three,” he drawled and pushed himself up in a fluid movement. “I think this is my cue to retire.” He paused for effect before he delivered his last strike. “But thank you for your lesson in trust.”

*

It was past bedtime for the students, and so the mansion lay in gloomy half-darkness when Erik stepped out of the study. He turned down a corridor at random, but the changes Charles had made on the ground floor of the house soon left Erik feeling thoroughly lost. The east wing seemed to be mostly classrooms and teacher’s offices and Erik tried to avoid the student’s living quarters since, even if they couldn’t see him, it felt inappropriate to lurk outside their bedrooms.

Whether it was more appropriate to lurk in Charles’ living quarters might have been a matter of argument, but Erik had never felt exactly bound by propriety in regard to Charles. It wasn’t that he was trying to snoop anyway. He didn’t know what he was trying to do, exactly, apart from passing the time since sleep was out and he apparently couldn’t stop quarreling with the only person that could hear and see him.

Then a soft whimper came from a door to his right which stood slightly ajar, and Erik remembered that this wasn’t exactly true. The whimper was followed by a muffled “Mama!” and the sound cut through him like a hot iron.

His hand reached for the door before he could think about what he was doing, and then he was inside the dark room, waiting for a moment until his eyes had adjusted to the faint moonlight falling through the windows. Again, the room was a strange mix of the stately and old-fashioned decor, and the things a little kid might like, which in David’s case seemed to be mostly superheroes and dinosaurs. There were posters on the walls and action figures on the windowsill, and when Erik stepped closer to the bed he could see David curled up under his bedspread with a teddy-bear in a Superman costume pressed firmly against his chest. Erik quietly shook his head at the choice, but had to concede that, at David’s age, he could probably be excused for favoring the most boring and goody two-shoes heroes out there.

The decorations were quickly forgotten, though, when there was another quiet little sob, sounding suspiciously like ‘Mama’. Erik swallowed and for a moment could do nothing else but stand frozen to the spot, uncertain what to do and caught in the clutches of his own memories.

He remembered dreaming of his mother, right after. His mind would replay those last moments, which he had not been able to comprehend were their last. He would dream of her smiling at him, opening her arms, only for her to grow stiff and crumble in his desperate embrace, blood soaking her clothes and her dead eyes staring at nothing. Everything good he had known had been destroyed by the horror of seeing his mother shot and the guilt that was eating him whole.

He remembered waking up kicking and screaming and being shoved in the ribs by the prisoner sleeping next to him on the hard, wooden pallets of the barracks. Remembered biting his hand to muffle his sobs because there was no one who had the strength or patience to comfort a kid who was seen as the doctor’s pet. Not when they were all numb with grief. Not when each and everyone of them was trying to survive from one day to the next.

David sniffled into his pillow, and Erik sat down on the edge of the bed to stroke the dark hair from the boy’s forehead. He was so young. So much younger than even Erik had been. And even if he had never known the hopeless despair Erik had been forced to live through, he knew the gaping wound of loss. Knew what it felt like to have your life ripped from under your feet and your heart from your chest.

When David blinked, still half-asleep, Erik gave him a tentative smile. “It’s all right,” he said quietly. “You’re safe. It was just a dream.”

David smiled back at him with tear-stained cheeks. “You didn’t tell me your name.”

“It’s Erik.”

“Can you stay with me until I fall back asleep?” David asked with a hopeful look, clutching his teddy-bear closer. It would have been impossible to say no.

“I will,” Erik whispered. “Sleep now. I’m right here.”

David closed his eyes with a sigh, and it didn’t take long before his breathing evened out, asleep again. Erik remained next to him. He still had no idea what he was doing; he just knew that at some point in his life, he would have given a lot for someone to tell him the simple lie that everything was well and give him absolution for just one night.

He didn’t know how long he had sat beside the sleeping boy—less than an hour probably, but time had become a thing of little matter—when the door was pushed open on silent hinges. Erik looked up; he already knew who it would be. Charles, on the other hand, seemed taken by surprise.

“What—?”

Erik rose from the foot of David’s bed. This was his cue; it was time to leave.

“He had a bad dream.” It wasn’t an apology. Charles might not want him here, but that didn’t mean that Erik would ignore this little boy’s pain when he knew it so well.

Charles acknowledged this with a nod. “He misses his mother.”

“Of course he does.”

Charles looked up at him then. “And you know how that feels.”

“I do,” Erik said simply.

It was a dangerous line to walk, full of hidden snares, and they both knew it. So in silent agreement, they chose to let it rest.

When Erik stopped next to Charles’ chair on his way to the door, part of him wanted to reach out and put a hand on his shoulder, but he didn’t. Instead he said quietly, “Good night, Charles,” and walked out without waiting to see if there would be a response.

*

It was the second night in a row in which Erik didn’t sleep. He used to stay up all night to read and strategize, sometimes cursing his body’s lack of cooperation when his eyes started to drift shut past three a.m., but now there was no need for that anymore. There were no plans to make, no projects to pursue, just the vague idea of ‘protecting Charles’, and he didn’t even know against what kind of threat since Charles himself insisted that there was none and that Erik was being ridiculous.

In the end, he went to the library, going through Charles’ collection of American classics when a warm voice suddenly spoke from behind him, “I see you’ve found your charge after all.”

Erik whipped around. The dark skinned woman who had introduced herself as his ‘handler’ stood next to the fireplace, regarding him with a mixture of pride and amusement.

“And what is it that you expect me to do here?” Erik pressed out. “I’m not welcome in his house, and he keeps telling me that I’m not needed.”

A sigh. “Charles Xavier is a very smart man, but he doesn’t know everything. Sometimes the ones we love are the most difficult to understand.”

Erik looked away with a bitter laugh. “It's certainly true that I’ve never understood _him_.”

“Oh, Erik. You understand him quite well. The problem is that you don’t trust anyone, not even yourself. Don’t let your past get in the way of your future.”

“What future? I’m dead, am I not?”

There was no answer, and when Erik turned back, he found himself alone again.

“Great. Fantastic. That was very helpful,” he muttered sardonically to himself, lightly punching the mantle; because whatever Charles might think, he didn’t have any anger management issues.

Too vexed to sit down with a book now, he decided to make his way to the kitchens for a midnight snack, instead. Just because he didn’t need food any longer, didn’t mean he couldn’t still enjoy a cookie or two.

*

When dawn finally approached, Erik went outside to see the sun come up behind the tree tops and then set off for a run. Maybe it was redundant now, but he had always liked extending himself physically, the steady rhythm of his own footfalls calming him and bringing back his focus. The morning air was crisp and cold with frost, the grass crunched under his soles, and his breath left him in thick, white plumes, dissolving into nothing in his wake.

Running along the familiar track was like a journey into his own past. From further away, the house and the property seemed almost unchanged, and it wasn’t difficult to imagine that it was still 1962. That he and Charles had never parted but had returned here together, Charles building his school and Erik leading a different sort of Brotherhood. Side by side, doing their best to keep their fellow mutants safe.

He could envision them meeting in the study for a game of chess at the end of the day, before they retired to their room—because of course Erik would be as welcome in Charles’ bed as he was in every other aspect of his life; this was Erik’s fantasy, after all. They would build their life together. Grow old together. And when the day came that death caught up with Erik, there would be no need to pry off his helmet in a useless attempt to reach Charles. He would be there, beside him, like he had always been.

Erik ran for a long while, his heart heavy and painful in his chest, and while the fresh morning air did its bit to clear his head, the physical exhaustion he was seeking wouldn’t come. Apparently another perk of dying was that you never ran out of breath.

He slipped back inside through a side entrance, telling himself it was to avoid the breakfast crowd of students that must surely hunt the ground floors by now. But in truth, it was mostly Charles he didn’t want to face.

Thinking about it, Erik realized that he really had not taken sufficient advantage of the fact that Charles was the only one who could see him and, since he found himself at a loss of what to do, he gave into his curiosity. He spent the morning sitting in the classrooms, listening to lectures, and was appalled to find that, while Charles might have the sciences covered, there was an unacceptable lack of languages and literature. He made a mental note to talk to Charles about this before he realized how absurd that idea was. It wasn’t any of Erik’s business what Charles did with his school.

Close to lunch time, Erik gave up on what he thought was an inexcusable boring history lesson, and moved outside into the grounds again where a group of the older kids were practicing their powers. They showed great potential, even though they obviously lacked discipline and concentration. _“And serenity?”_ a voice whispered in his mind, but Erik pushed it quickly away.

He sat on a low stone wall, watching these kids and enjoying the sunshine, for a moment glad that he hardly felt the cold. He hadn’t been there long when he heard shuffling footsteps come up behind him. Looking over his shoulder, he smiled at his little visitor.

“Hello, David.”

The boy’s small face spread into a shy smile. “Hello, Mister Erik.”

Erik laughed. “Just Erik, is fine.” He looked the little boy up and down before he asked, “Don’t you have lessons right now?”

David shrugged. “No one’s got time at the moment. Mister Hank said he’d show me a few things in the lab this afternoon though.”

Somehow this didn’t sit right with Erik. The boy seemed to be left on the sidelines a lot when he was probably in need of much more attention than the average child due to his difficult circumstances.

“Well, why don’t you sit down and keep me company then?” he asked, and David all too happily scrambled up on the wall and carefully sat down with a hand's breadth between them. They watched the older kids in silence, until David let out a sigh that sounded almost despondent.

Erik gave him a questioning look. “What is it?”

“It’s just… It’s so cool what they can do. I wish I could do stuff like that.”

“You probably will when you’re older. Most of us aren’t born with active powers. I only started being able to use mine when I was twelve. ”

“You can do stuff too?”

“Sure.”

“Really?”

The boy’s face was a picture of of amazement and longing and he looked so adorable that Erik reached out without thinking and ruffled his floppy hair. It felt the same as Charles’ against his fingers and, for a second, Erik froze. But when David just beamed at him, he pushed any thought of Charles away. This wasn’t about them. This was about a small boy in need of attention and comfort, and Erik could relate to that too much to deny him.

Of course, if you talked of the devil he appeared, and in Erik’s case it apparently even sufficed to think of him. Just when a delighted David watched Erik float a few long-forgotten garden tools through the air, a stern voice called out to them.

“David!”

The little boy cringed, suddenly looking rather guilty.

“Where have you been?” Charles demanded. “Alex has been searching everywhere for you. He was supposed to drive you to school.”

David responded with a mulish look. “I don’t want to go to school. I want to stay here with Erik.”

Erik had to struggle not to smile. So the little imp already knew how to get around the truth with lies of omission. He couldn't help but think that father and son were quite alike, and the resemblance was even more pronounced when they squared off with the same stubborn expression on their faces.

“School is important,” Charles said unrelenting.

“The other kids go to school here.” David scowled. “Why can’t I?”

“Because we don’t have classes for kids your age. We’ve been over this, David.”

“You don’t want me!” The boy jumped up, tears glistening in his eyes now. “You never did! I hate you!”

Before Charles could get another word out, David turned around and ran back into the direction of the mansion. Charles put his face in his hands and let out a frustrated breath.

“You know he doesn’t mean that, right?”

“Yes. Of course. That doesn’t make it easier to hear. Sometimes I think I have no idea how to talk to him. It’s not like I had a great example in my parents. They never talked to me all that much.”

“It's probably more important to listen.”

Charles gave him a glowering look. “Are you an expert on raising children now?”

“I'm just trying to apply common sense.”

“Well, I'm sure your experience was better than mine, so that's something, I guess.” When Erik didn't answer right away, Charles looked at him alarmed. “Oh, god. Erik. I didn't mean to imply— I'm sorry. Jesus.” He ran a hand through his over-long hair. “I don't know what I'm saying anymore.”

“No. You're right. I probably idolize my parents, but they were good people. They never gave me cause to doubt that they loved me. Even before we were deported, when life became more and more unbearable for us, we found ways to be happy simply because we had each other.”

Erik fell silent, swallowing against the sudden lump in his throat. When the warm pressure of a hand curled around his knee, he savored it, but he couldn't bear to look at Charles. He couldn't bear to see the heart-felt compassion he knew he would find there, because Charles already owned too much of Erik's soul and he didn't know what would happen if he handed over the rest.

“This is how David feels,” he said quietly, directing the conversation to their original topic again. “And he's only a child. He lost his whole world, everything dear and familiar. His mother might have had her faults, maybe she even acted selfishly when she never told you about him, but to David she's the most perfect human being possible. And you didn't want her and you didn't want him.”

“I didn't know about him!”

“He's a grief-stricken six-year-old boy. Don't expect logical thinking and sane decision making from him.”

Charles gave him a long look. “You only came back to haunt me so that you could rub my face in all my failures, didn't you?”

“Is it so hard to consider the possibility that I might be here to help you?”

Charles shook his head. “I’m not even sure I’m not hallucinating you, and it doesn't help when you're making sense.”

Erik rolled his eyes. “And how do you explain the fact that your son can see me, too?”

“Projection?”

Charles hung his head for a moment, and when he looked back up again, he had that vulnerable look upon his face again that made Erik want to either up and run or pull him close and never let go.

“It's just... have you ever wished for something that you knew in your heart could never happen? Something that was completely impossible? How can you not question your own perception and sanity if it suddenly comes true? You being here is either a horrible trick my mind is playing on me, or it's a miracle. And I'm not sure I'm ready to believe in the latter.”

“You wished for—?”

“For you to come back. To me, Erik. And I know that's grief. That's how grief works. Denial, anger, bargaining... but in the end comes acceptance, and then you move on.”

Erik's heart was hammering like mad in his chest. “And did you?”

Charles bit his lip. “I tried.”

“I don't know about miracles,” Erik said carefully. “But in the moment I died, I wished for nothing more than a chance to see you, to talk to you, just one more time. For a chance to make things right. I never believed in an afterlife or anything like that, and I don't know what this is, but maybe for once the how and why is not important. Maybe we can just take the chance that we've been given.”

“And what if we do? If we make things right? Is that when you'll leave again?”

Charles' smile wasn't able to hide the anguish in his eyes, and as much as Erik wanted to chase it away, the promises on the tip of his tongue were not his to make. The moment stretched on, the chasm between them aching and unyielding.

“I better go and call David's school,” Charles said at long last, when Erik failed to come up with an answer. “And then I have afternoon lessons.” But he lingered, just for a moment longer, watching Erik with hopeless hunger. Erik felt as if he was torn apart on the inside, wanting to reach out and unable to move a muscle. When Charles finally turned his chair around, he panicked.

“You should fire that history teacher before she bores your students to tears,” he blurted.

Charles stopped and looked over his shoulder with an amused expression. “I'll keep that in mind,” he said wryly. “Any other advice?”

“Languages. And literature. It's just as important as science.”

“I agree. But I haven't managed to find the right teacher so far.”

Erik had watched him leave and then sat back down on the wall, putting his head in his hands. Somehow he had not expected that being an angel would be this fucking difficult.

*

He stayed outside long after dark, but after a while he began to feel a strange tug, a notion telling him to go inside that was steadily growing stronger. In the end, Erik was too curious to resist. He followed that pull back to the mansion and through its quiet corridors, until he reached a familiar door.

David was already in bed, but in the soft glow coming from the bedside lamp, Erik could see that he was still awake.

“Erik!” David sat up with a bright smile. “I knew you'd come! I've been waiting for you!”

Erik had to smile at the boy's fervor. “I just wanted to say goodnight,” he said as he slipped inside.

“Can you read me a bedtime story?”

David looked at him hopefully.

“Didn't your dad do that already?”

The boy bit his lip and shook his head. “He asked,” he admitted. “But I said didn't want one.”

Erik raised his eyebrows. “But you do. So why did you say that?”

“It's not the same.”

“What isn't?”

“My mom. She'd sit with me in the bed when she read a story, so I could see the pictures. She'd put her arm around me and...” He swallowed, looking down at his bedspread, and shrugged. “He can't do that.”

It hit Erik right then, how painful this must be for Charles. Already at a disadvantage due to no fault of his own, his disability created an additional barrier between him and his son, which must be especially difficult for someone who had always been as physically affectionate a person as Charles Xavier.

He sank down at the edge of the mattress, ducking his head to catch David's eyes. “You know, just because he's in a wheelchair doesn't mean you can't hug your father. I'm sure he would like that very much.”

David gave him an uncertain look. “Yeah? But... I don't know how. I mean... I'm too old to sit in his lap, right? That's weird. I'm not a baby!”

“Who says that you are?”

“Scott and Bobby do.”

“They're idiots. Don't listen to them.”

David looked at him almost scandalized for a moment, but when Erik just raised his eyebrows.

“You're not a baby,” he said. “And you can have all the hugs you want.”

“Really?” David looked at him uncertainly. “Can I hug you then?”

Erik blinked. “Uh... yes, su—”

David scrambled forward and wrapped his small arms around him, holding on fiercely. “I'm glad you're here,” he whispered against Erik's sternum, and all Erik could do was to gingerly stroke the boy's back. Something loosened in his chest as he held that small body close, warm and so full of trust. He wasn't sure he deserved it, but that didn't prevent him from savoring it all the same.

*

David fell asleep half way through the first chapter of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, and Erik quietly put the book on the nightstand. Looking down at the peacefully sleeping boy, his face angelic under his mop of dark hair, Erik marveled at how he had managed to come to this point. A few days ago he had been the leader of the Brotherhood; he'd had a mission. Now he was as good as living in Charles' home, playing house with his son. It certainly wasn't something he had ever imagined. He never considered having kids of his own, but something about David moved him, made him want to protect this boy from all the harm and hurt that Erik had gone through.

Silently, he turned down the light and left, navigating the corridors in the dark as he was heading to the kitchen. At this time, it would probably be empty, and he might as well get a midnight snack before he found a place to wile away the hours until sunrise. He wondered where Charles was now, whether he was sitting across an abandoned chessboard, waiting for Erik, but he dismissed that thought as quickly as it came. Charles' life had moved on without Erik for years by now. The clock couldn't be turned back; it was steadily going forward, ticking away the hours until, finally, his time here would have run out.

Erik was in a gloomy mood when he arrived downstairs and, unfortunately, the kitchen wasn’t as deserted as he had hoped for. Muffled voices came from inside, and Erik stopped in his tracks to listen.

“I heard him last night in his study,” someone was saying. “He was ranting and shouting—”

“Maybe he was on the phone.”

That was Hank. And the one with him was probably Alex, who promptly disagreed.

“He wasn't. Come on, Hank. You can’t tell me you haven’t noticed how he keeps muttering to himself.”

Hank let out an exasperated sigh. “Against popular belief, talking to yourself doesn’t make you clinically insane.”

“He wasn’t talking to himself! He was talking to Erik! Do you really think that’s not a sign he’s on his way back to crazy town?”

Erik frowned and leaned against the wall with his arms crossed, listening further.

“Are you sure? I thought he’d gotten over it. It’s been five years!”

“He’s never gotten over it. He just stopped hiding in his room and started hiding in his work instead.”

“But the nightmares have stopped. Mostly.”

“Yeah. Because he takes all kinds of shit, including your serum.”

“He hasn’t— He’s only been taking it a few times, when it was required.”

“Really? Because if he keeps fucking with his telepathy, that might be the reason why he’s hallucinating his dead lover.”

Erik raised his eyebrows.

“Alex! I keep telling you that Charles... I don't think they were... they didn't—”

''Well, if they didn't, then it certainly wasn't because of a lack of interest. The eye-fucking going on there was giving me a headache most of the days.”

Erik snorted.

“What's got you so amused?”

Erik nearly jumped at the voice that came out of the dark behind him. “Charles. I didn't— I wasn't expecting you.”

“This is my house and my kitchen, and I'm famished.”

“Well, I'm not sure you should go in there right now. You might get more than the ham-and-cheese sandwich you're looking for.”

Charles raised his eyebrows. “And what reason would I have to avoid two of my closest friends and colleagues?”

Erik leaned back, with a smug smile. “They’re about to set up an intervention for you.”

Charles looked at him with a gobsmacked expression. Then he cursed quite eloquently and pushed himself past Erik and through the door before Erik could make a move to stop him.

“Okay, whatever you two are planning, you can stop right now. I’m not crazy,” Charles' exasperated voice came from inside a moment later, and then, “Not a word from you, Alex.”

Erik grinned and followed Charles inside. This was a show he didn't want to miss.

*

“So what you're saying is that you can see Erik,” Hank recapitulated twenty minutes later.

“Yes.”

“And that he's here in this room right now.”

“Yes.”

“And you want us to believe that you're not crazy?” Alex scoffed. “Good luck with that.”

Erik had the strong urge to whack him around the head, if only for the purpose of determining if it would have any effect, but Charles just shot him an annoyed look before he turned back to Hank. He obviously knew how to pick his battles.

“Hank, you know I'm a scientist,” he said, going for his lets-be-reasonable voice. “I've thoroughly questioned my own perception, believe me. But I'm not the only one who can see Erik. David does too.”

“David?” Hank frowned. “And you don't think that he's just trying to impress and please you?”

“It wasn't him who told me about it. Erik did.”

Alex snorted. “So your hallucination is telling you that you're not the only one having hallucinations.”

“I know how it sounds, but I'm not making this up.”

Hank and Alex's expressions were an uncomfortable mixture of skepticism and pity. They obviously thought Charles was off his rocker and weren't quite sure how to confront their mentor and former teacher about it.

“David isn't aware of who Erik is, and I've seen—” Charles broke off and shot him an exasperated smile when Erik flicked his fingers with an impatient huff, and all the pots and pans and cutlery in the room rose into the air.

Hank and Alex gaped, looking around themselves for the source of the telekinetic power display.

“Is that Jean doing this?” Alex asked, giving Charles an accusatory look.

But Hank shook his head. “Metal. It's all metal. Jean doesn't have that kind of control yet.” He swallowed and then whispered with obvious reluctance, “Erik? Is... is that you?”

Alex stared at him disbelievingly, and Hank looked so mortified that Erik took pity on him. He set the pots down with a clang, but pulled the cutlery into a heap on the table, quickly arranging it into a pattern until the knives and forks clearly spelled out the word 'YES'. He resisted the urge to add 'YOU MORONS'.

Alex eyes widened almost comically, then he crossed his arms over his chest and glared at the table as if he was trying to incinerate it. Luckily he had learned some control by now. Hank just scratched his neck, looking uncertain but also excited.

“That's... that's extraordinary,” he muttered. “So... Erik didn't die after all? What happened? Why is he invisible?”

Charles shook his head. “No. He died. He's... apparently he's an angel now.”

Alex slowly raised his eyes from the table. Then he broke out laughing.

*

Once Charles had appealed to Hank's scientific curiosity, Erik had been dragged down to his laboratory where Hank booted up his computers and started aiming all kinds of gadgets at the area Charles told him Erik was standing.

“What are you hoping to achieve with this?” Erik asked when he finally ran out of patience. “You know I'm here. You can see me, you can talk to me. Why does it matter if Hank can prove it?”

“Because he still thinks I'm hallucinating.”

“Actually I'm undecided,” Hank butted in. “The chances are fifty-fifty as I see it right now.”

“Thank you Hank, that's very reassuring.”

“You know I'm not a hallucination,” Erik tried again. “Just trust your instincts.”

Charles looked at him obviously torn. “I'm sorry,” he said. “I need to be sure.”

Erik threw himself down on the only chair that wasn't stacked with papers and machinery and demanded they at least bring him a coffee, which in addition gave him some entertainment when Hank – to his complete bafflement – couldn't see the cup move when Erik picked it up, but couldn't help to note that it was empty after.

There had been a lot more head-scratching, and Hank pushing up his glasses while scribbling notes and waving stuff around, and it had been a very long day. At the end of it, Hank declared that he could detect some sort of energy field around Erik, although he couldn't say what kind of energy or how it was created. But since Charles decided it was good enough for him, Erik took that as his cue to flee.

When the winter sun went down in fiery colors over the lake once more, Erik watched it melt into the horizon from high up on the rooftops of the Xavier mansion, sitting on the elaborate stone balustrade running along the edge with his legs dangling over. It wasn't so much that he was hiding; he just wanted some peace and quiet to think. And to not feel like a science project for Hank and Charles to bond over. Charles might have made an adorable lab rat once, but Erik had never felt comfortable in that position.

He also had come to appreciate that there was beauty in being alone, and he savored the silence of the vast grounds stretching out beneath him and the cold breeze ruffling his hair. It felt much better than being cooped up in Hank's stuffy lab, even if he had no way to prod Erik with needles or touch him in any other way. For Charles, finding scientific proof might bring some solace, but it didn't help Erik to find answers for the question that kept coming back to him. What was his purpose, what was he supposed to achieve? And what would happen if he succeeded?

He didn't know how long he'd been up there, when he heard the characteristic scuffling of small feet behind him. Strangely enough, he didn't mind this particular disturbance.

“Everybody is talking about you,” David told him, scrunching up his nose, when Erik turned around towards him.

“Are they?” It didn't come as much of a surprise to hear that their secret was out, and he couldn't say that he cared. “Well, then you know why I'm hiding up here.”

“But...” David looked at him with hurt in his eyes. “I thought you were my friend.”

“I am.”

“You said that I’m special!”

“Which is true.”

“But... now Hank and Alex and everyone can see you!”

Erik tried not to smile. It was obvious that the boy was upset and why, so he tried to explain. “Hank can detect me with his wonky machines, but he can’t see me. That’s different. He can’t talk to me, not like you do. Which, to be honest, I'm perfectly fine with.”

“Yeah?”

“Oh, yes. I'd rather talk to you than him.”

That had apparently been the right thing to say, because David's face split into a huge grin and he shuffled over, climbing up next to Erik, who turned around so that his back was to the edge of the roof and he could put a protective arm behind the boy.

“They said you’re dead,” David said, looking up at him with big, questioning eyes. “Is that true?”

“Does that idea scare you?”

David bit his lip, looking thoughtful. “No, not really. I know you're not going to hurt me. I thought you were a bit scary at first, but that was before I talked to you.”

Erik smiled. Clever kid.

“Were you scared when you died?” David asked a moment later.

“In the beginning,” Erik admitted, thinking about the darkness that had slowly been creeping in. “For a moment.”

“Do you think my mom was scared?”

Erik looked down in the glistening eyes of the young boy. “No,” he said. “I think you’re mom didn’t have to be. When she died, it happened very quickly.”

“Where is she now?”

Erik rubbed his neck. He probably should have seen this line of questions coming, maybe then he could have prepared a better answer. But maybe not. It wasn't an easy question, and there would be no easy answer.

“I don't really know,” he said finally, trying to be as truthful as he could. “But I think it’s a good place, because your mom was a good person, wasn’t she?”

“Yes.”

“See, I wasn’t always a good person. So they didn’t let me go to that place when I died. Instead, they sent me here.”

“Why?”

That was the question Erik had asked himself for all this time. He was about to tell David that, tell him that he didn't know the answer, when he suddenly realized that maybe he did. He looked at the boy's innocent face, the curious tilt of his brows and the serious look in his eyes, and he knew.

“Because of you,” he said and smiled at David's astonished look, feeling the sentiment mirrored inside himself. “To help you. You and your dad. You know... When I lost my mother, I was only a few years older than you. I was twelve. And it changed me. I didn’t believe in kindness and love any longer. I was hurting and I was angry. And it made me want to lash out at others so that they would hurt the same as I did. I think, if there had been someone, at that point, someone who cared for me, my life might have gone differently. I was alone, but you’re not, David. You have a father who loves you, who wants to be there for you, even if he doesn’t always know how to do that. You’ve got to tell him and let him try. I promise you, you can trust him. He is one of those truly good persons. In fact, he's one of the best you can find.”

“You think he loves me?” David asked, sniffling a little.

“I know he does.”

“But... what if I'm not a mutant?”

Erik raised an eyebrow. “What then?”

“He's a mutant. And he has a school for mutants. And he talks about mutants all the time. What if I'm not? He'll hate me!”

“He won't. Believe me, David. Your father won't care either way.”

“How can you be sure?”

“Because your a wonderful, special boy, no matter if you have mutant abilities or not.”

“So you wouldn't mind if I wasn't a mutant?” David asked uncertainly.

“Not one bit,” Erik said, and he was amazed to realize that this was the complete truth.

*

Erik found Charles in his study later that night, but it was more than a game of chess he was looking for this time. He'd had a task to fulfill, and for the first time Erik thought he might know how to go about it. He let Charles set the board and accepted the drink he was handed, nodding along as Charles rattled on about Hank's theories in regard to Erik's aura of energy, although he couldn't say that he cared much. But he wanted Charles to feel comfortable and relaxed before he brought the topic around to the question he wanted to address.

Once their game was under way for a while, and they were on their second glass of scotch, Erik asked casually, “Have you ever thought about testing David?”

Charles looked up with a frown. “In regard to what?”

“The mutant genes.”

For a moment Charles looked completely thunderstruck. “No, of course not,” he said with vehemence, as if the whole idea was vile and disgusting to him.

Erik took a deep breath. “I think you should.”

“What?”

“I think, for his own sake, you should test him.”

“How can you—” Charles shook his head, looking truly shocked. “That's disgusting Erik! And coming from you? You've riled against testing children when it was humans trying to pick out mutants. You said it reminded you of the selections happening in Nazi Germany! And now you want me to do this to my own son? Because he's worthless if he's not a mutant?”

“No, what—” Erik stared at him taken aback. “Is that how you think I see him?”

“I don't know how you see him! I don't even want you to see him! I-—”

“He's afraid!” Erik interrupted him. “He's scared that you won't love him if he's not a mutant.”

Erik had always known that Charles' unassuming appearance was misleading, that he was more than just the gentle professor, but now there was a whole thunderstorm in his eyes, the like Erik hadn't seen before.

“What have you told him?” Charles whispered with barely held back rage. “What kind of crap have you put in his head, Erik? Have you told him that humans are oh-so-inferior? That only mutants are worth to walk this earth?”

“Do you really believe that's what I'd do?”

“It's what I've been hearing from you for almost two decades now, Erik. What else am I supposed to believe? But I'm warning you, if you've hurt David—”

“I've tried to help him, because I know how it feels to be set apart and excluded! To feel like you don't belong, like you're alone in the world.”

“Why would David have to feel like that? He's got me. He's got all of us here, looking out for him.”

“And you're all mutants. You're a famous mutant leader. You have a mutant school, all the kids and teachers have extraordinary abilities. He's the odd one out. The youngest. The foreigner. He's the freak who can't measure up when all around him everyone is special.”

“How dare you—”

“That's how he feels, Charles. And if you test him, at least he'd know.”

“Fuck off, Erik! You have no idea what you're talking about. Not everything is about your mutant agenda, and I won't let you drag my son into your ugly politics.”

“That's got nothing to do with this!”

“I think it does. And I'm serious, Erik. Stay out of this. Leave David alone. I won't have you funneling him your superiority bullshit.”

Erik grit his teeth in frustration. “This isn't about mutant politics, this is about your son.”

“Exactly. And he's infinitely more precious to me.”

“Then you should put his needs first.”

“That's what I'm doing.”

They faced off, glaring at each other in silence, Charles wearing the same stubborn, self-righteous expression that had been driving Erik up the wall for years. He balled his hands into fists. Once more the old battle lines had been drawn. He wanted to argue, but he knew it would achieve nothing at this point—it never had. Charles had long ago stopped listening to him, but for Erik gracefully accepting defeat had never been an option.

“Fine,” he ground out in the end, forcing himself to remain civil. “I guess I've got nothing more to say then.”

He tipped over his king on the chessboard, for the first time in their long history forfeiting a game before it was over.

*

Erik had no idea what to do now. He didn't know how he was supposed to prove himself. Everyone's opinion of him was set in stone anyway, and he started to think that Charles might be right and there was no threat to his life. He didn't need Erik's protection and he didn't want his help, and so Erik was patently useless. After stalking through the corridors for a while, he went to the library and yelled at thin air, but his smartypants handler wasn't showing.

In the end he made his way down to the lab to sulk and do his own little bit of experimentation, which mostly consisted of trying out what it took to get Hank to notice something Erik was doing and then savoring his confusion.

This was where Charles found him hours later, although Erik wasn't the one he had been looking for.

“Hank! Have you seen— Erik? What are you doing here?”

“Oh, so he _is_ here, I knew it!” Hank looked around wildly, and then glared in the opposite direction of where Erik was sitting. “Stop bugging me, just because you're bored!”

“I'm not _bored_. You can tell him that I'm bugging him for purely scientific rea—”

“David is gone.”

It took a moment for that to settle in, but then Erik's heart plummeted straight into his guts. He'd been waiting for this, hadn't he? For some sort of crisis or catastrophe. Well, maybe now he was getting his wish, only he had never imagined that David would be the one put in danger.

“Gone where?” Hank still looked mostly confused and uncomprehending.

“I don't know where, Hank! That's the point! He's not in his bed and I can't find him.” Charles pointed to his temple. “I tried.”

Erik stood. “When have you seen him last?”

Charles frowned. “It's almost midnight now, so... about four hours ago when I was saying good night.”

“Is there any evidence that he was taken?”

Charles blinked at him. “You think someone took him? Why would anyone...?

“Believe me when I say that I could come up with many reasons.”

Charles stared at him aghast.

“I'm not saying that's what happened. Maybe he ran away. Have you checked if anything else is missing?”

“Do you want me to fire up Cerebro?” Hank interjected, unaware of the conversation going on without him.

“No. Yes. I—” Charles looked from him to Erik and back obviously overwhelmed and too worried to think straight. “I haven't looked yet. But that's probably a good idea. And, yes, Cerebro. That too.”

“I'll go check his room,” Erik said. “Maybe someone should start with the grounds.”

“I'll tell Alex and Piotr, they can coordinate the search outside.”

After a moment of hesitation, Erik put a reassuring hand on Charles' shoulder. “You go look for him. And don't worry. We'll find him.”

Charles gave him a grateful look. “Thank you.”

Erik nodded, and left Charles with Hank who looked completely freaked out. He took the stairs two at a time, and passed an unsuspecting Alex in the hall, accompanied by the bulky man who was teaching arts. They were on their way out, wearing worried expressions, so Charles must have contacted them already. Good. He had not told Charles, but Erik had a very bad feeling about this.

When he arrived in David's room, he immediately saw that the bed didn't look like someone had actually slept in it, and David's Superman teddy-bear was conspicuously absent. So was Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, and the toy dinosaurs from the windowsill. Erik searched further, but there was no sign for a struggle of any kind to be found, and the fact that David's most dear possessions were missing, made it more likely that David had run away on his own accord. That still didn't explain why Charles wasn't able to find him telepathically.

Frustrated about the lack of clues, Erik decided to see whether he could be of any help outside, but was being stopped short by the shouting coming from the entrance hall.

“I knew we couldn't trust him! This is his doing!”

“You can be sure that I'll question him about this, Alex,” Charles said gravely. “But shouting accusations won't help us get to the bottom of this. Piotr, Petra, if you two could see to it that the children are safe. I'll find Erik and—”

“I'm here.”

Charles wheeled around. He looked stricken, as if someone had mortally wounded him and he was only holding himself together with the power of his will. Hank was with him, as well as Alex, Piotr Rasputin and the blond history teacher. There was a white envelope and a slightly wrinkled note in Charles' lap.

The others followed Charles' gaze but, of course, found nothing. Erik was there for Charles alone.

“What happened?” he asked, ignoring the rest of them as he came down the stairs.

“Petra found a note taped to the front gate,” Charles said, his voice cold and detached. “It's from the Brotherhood, telling me that if I want to see my son again, I'd better abide by their conditions.”

Erik stared at him, shocked and just a bit confused. “The Brotherhood? What Brotherhood?”

“I don't know, is there more than one?”

“Charles, I've been dead for five years. There is no Brotherhood any longer.”

“Apparently someone disagrees.”

“Is he here now?” Hank looked around uncertainly.

Alex had no such compunction. “Now listen, you bastard!” he spat, glaring around the room. “Don't think we're not onto you, because it's pretty obvious who's the culprit here! Either you've been pretending to be Magneto to get into Charles confidences, or you really are who you say you are and then we shouldn't have trusted you from the start. Now tell us where David is or I swear I'll murder you, whether you're dead already or not!”

Erik kept his eyes on Charles through Alex's diatribe, and Charles was staring back with desperate intensity, as if he was trying with all his might to read Erik, knowing it was impossible.

“Do you believe that as well, Charles?”

“I don't know what to believe anymore.”

“You can't think that this is a coincidence!” Alex rounded on Charles disbelievingly. “He's been here for two days and now David is gone. Who else would have had the opportunity to take him? Right out of this house?”

“I thought he was in my lab tonight, but maybe that's just what he wanted me to believe,” Hank said quietly. He actually looked betrayed.

“You would have realized if there had been an intruder, especially someone with malicious intent.” The blonde woman offered her opinion dispassionately.

Rasputin was the only one who kept silent, but Charles didn't bother to answer any of them. He kept looking at Erik, as if he was asking him to give an explanation, any explanation, knowing that he was hoping in vain.

Erik shook his head. “This doesn't make sense. David's things are missing. His teddy-bear. A book. His dinosaurs. Those are things a kid would pack if it was planning to run away.”

“Or someone who wanted us to believe that's the case.”

“Why would I do something like this?” Erik asked, and now for the first time he looked up to regard the faces around him. They couldn't see him, but their expressions were speaking volumes.

“Well, if I am to believe this letter,” Charles replied with a barely conceivable tremble in his voice. “Because you want me to kill Senator Kelly.”

It was like a punch in the gut.

“What?”

“That's the condition for getting David back alive.” Charles held up the note with a bitter twist of his mouth.

Nausea spread through Erik like a tidal wave. Kelly's assassination had been on their agenda, but it had been nothing more that a yet half-assed plan fueled more by the bloodlust of some of the less civilized members of the group than strategic political thinking. Erik despised Kelly, but he had come to realize that killing a figurehead seldom killed the movement. It just created martyrs and even more motivation. But not everyone of his acolytes had seen it that way.

“I think you're right,” he pressed out. “This is the Brotherhood's doing.”

For all that Charles had just claimed this himself, had all but accused Erik of being involved, he looked truly shocked by this admission.

“Tell me!” he growled, his eyes burning Erik like braziers. “Do you know where David is?”

The others who had been watching Charles' one-sided conversation in silence, immediately went on alert, falling in formation behind him, but Erik didn't pay them any attention. It was Charles he needed to convince.

“No,” he said with a heavy heart. “I'm not part of this, Charles, you must know this.”

“Must I?” Charles cut in. “Going after Senator Kelly seems exactly like something you would do.”

“Of course it is!” Alex cried, balling his hands into fists in agitation.

“It had been on our list of possible actions, but my priority was saving mutants. Stopping the scientists and the military from experimenting on us and exploiting us. I wasn't sure about Kelly back then, and it would be the height of stupidity to kill him off now that the tide is changing. I don't know what their plan is, but I know it's too much of a coincidence to not see the connection.”

Charles looked at him, a picture of indecision, and Erik felt numb and hollow waiting for his verdict.

“Do you swear, Erik?” Charles whispered after a long moment.

“Yes.”

“On the love for your mother?”

For a moment Erik felt as if all breath had left his lungs, and he only half registered the mutters of confusion and disbelief coming from the others.

“Yes.”

“Charles! Don't tell me you're willing to trust this asshole with the life of your son!” Alex spat, seething now.

Charles' face turned to stone. “That's quite enough, Alex. I'll confer with you after Erik has told me what he knows. Petra, Piotr, please. Look after the children. I don't want to take any risks.”

He waited until the two mutants had vanished up the stairs before he addressed his two former protégés. “I know you don't like this. I understand that it's difficult for you when you don't know what's going on, and I know you don't trust Erik. I'm not asking you to. I'm asking you to trust me. All I want is to get David back, safe and sound, and I know so do you.”

Alex opened his mouth to object, but Hank took him by the arm and started to drag him away. “We'll be in my lab when you're done here,” he said, giving Charles a serious nod. “Don't take too long.”

When the two of them had left, Charles closed his eyes. “Okay. Tell me what you think you know.”

Erik took a shaky breath. He wasn't sure that he had completely convinced Charles of his innocence, but as Charles had said, the most important thing was to find David, and to find him quickly.

“I think David left on his own volition,” he started. “Your Petra is right. You would have noticed if someone had come into the mansion and had taken him by force, and they wouldn't have had the time or care to pack his stuff.”

“And then what? The kidnappers just conveniently waited outside?” Charles asked skeptically.

“Maybe they were watching you for a different reason and just jumped at the chance.”

“There's a fault in your logic, though. How could they have been watching us from close enough to grab David and still go undetected? My range covers quite a bit more than just the grounds.”

“I've managed to sneak up on you before.”

“Because you had your hel—” Charles broke off and looked at Erik sharply.

Erik narrowed his eyes. “Do you know what happened to it? Whether it was retrieved by anyone?”

“I— no.” Charles actually looked guilty now. “The whole area was in danger of collapse. I'm sorry to say that it wasn't possible to retrieve... anything.”

It took Erik a moment to understand what he was talking about, but then it hit him. Of course. He had died. There had been a body. Erik had not wasted any thought on what had happened to it.

“No... that's... it might have been better that way,” he said slowly, trying not to think about his mortal remains. It was just a bit disconcerting. “But this means that someone could have taken the helmet.”

Charles nodded thoughtfully. “Someone with mutant strength who's not too risk-averse.”

Erik thought for a moment. But there was just one face rising up in his mind. They had never seen eye to eye, and Kelly's assassination had in fact been his proposition.

“Sabretooth,” he said with sudden, absolute conviction as his heart dropped at the thought of David in the hands of that lunatic.

*

Their discussion went deep into the night. Charles had not been able to find David, even with the help of Cerebro and Erik was sure that was because of the helmet. Victor Creed, Sabretooth as he called himself, had a high resistance to telepathic probing, even if the same couldn't be said for his possible allies.

“I still can't believe that fuckwit has taken over the Brotherhood,” Erik growled as he paced the length of Charles' study.

Charles gave him a look. “I know this must smart you, but could we concentrate on my missing son for a second?”

Erik stopped in his tracks and shot Charles a guilty look. “Of course. I didn't mean... Victor is a savage, but he's calculating as well. He won't have any scruples to use David as leverage in what ever way will get him what he wants. But I don't think he'll go out of his way to hurt him.”

“Are you sure?”

Charles looked like death warmed over in this moment, and Erik wished nothing more than being able to lie to him, but he couldn't.

“The best I can tell you is that he's indifferent to others unless they made an enemy out of him. David is a pawn to him, nothing more, nothing less.”

Charles put his head in his hands. “You know... I think I'm coming to understand the urge to murder someone in the most painful way possible.”

“I certainly won't stand in your way,” Erik said, but he didn't push the subject. “You can't underestimate his intelligence, though. He'll have a plan and he'll have taken the possibility of you fighting back into account.”

“Then how do we get David back?”

“The way I see it, we have two advantages. For one, he isn't very creative. So chances are he'll use one of the old Brotherhood hideouts.”

“And what's the second?”

Erik looked at him determinedly. “He doesn't know you have me on your side.”

Charles raised his eyebrows. “What are you proposing?”

“I'll go in by myself.”

Charles' look clearly proclaimed that he had more than a few doubts about Erik's sanity. “No chance in hell.”

Erik sighed. “It makes sense. They can't see me. They can't do anything to me.” For a second he hesitated but then decided to go for it. “This might be the whole reason I'm here, Charles.”

Charles' face was completely unreadable, but his voice brook no argument when he said, “I'm coming with you and that's my final word.”

Erik didn't like this. Charles was a powerful mutant, but Sabretooth had resisted telepaths before and if he had the helmet he could subvert Charles' efforts, rendering him essentially helpless and a sitting duck. But Charles was not someone to be easily swayed once he made up his mind.

“It could be a trap,” Erik reminded him. “There's a high probability that it is, in fact. They can't really think you'd go along with this.”

“No, it’s a very good plan, actually,” Charles said softly.

Erik gave him a doubtful look.

“There are not many people for whom I’d be willing to give up all my principles,” Charles explained. “David is one of them.”

“And you’d destroy everything you’ve built?”

Charles just looked at him helplessly.

“You won’t have to,” Erik told him fervently. “I promise you, we'll find him.”

*

As Charles went to talk to Hank and Alex, and possibly the rest of his entourage, Erik removed himself up to the roof again. It had quickly become a favorite place for him; out of the way of the hustle and bustle of the school and the vast view of the property and the countryside beyond felt grounding, lending perspective.

Dawn was approaching, slowly lighting up the dark blue sky where the brightest stars were still twinkling, bringing with it new purpose and determination. Erik felt restless, thinking that they should act quickly and take the traitorous bastards by surprise. He couldn't help but wonder what the others were discussing right now; whether Alex was trying to talk Charles out of trusting him, or whether they were making up their own idiotic plans that would surely fail and only put David in even greater danger.

Luckily he didn't have to wait for long. When he heard the door of the roof access opening, he turned around, tense and agitated, raising his eyebrows in expectation, anticipating nothing so much as to be rebuffed.

“And? Is the verdict out?” he tried to joke, even thought he had never felt less like laughing. Still, he savored the small smile Charles gave him in answer.

“Yes. Hank is getting the—” He broke off mid-sentence and stared at Erik open-mouthed and in shocked silence.

“What?”

“That's... are those... wings?” Charles asked faintly.

Frowning, Erik cast a look over his shoulder—and blinked. It sure looked like wings. Light gray, feathery, shimmering wings.

“Jesus,” Charles muttered, slowly pushing himself closer. “You don't do things by half, do you?”

“I don't... I didn't do anything,” Erik said. “I don't know where they came from.”

“You didn't have them before?”

“No, I—” Erik hesitantly reached out, but he couldn't quite touch them. “This is strange.”

“May I?”

Erik swallowed and then nodded. He couldn't feel Charles' hand either, but he felt something. A tingle. A connection. He shivered.

“It feels warm. And... protective,” Charles said, his voice soft with amazement as he looked up at Erik's face. “You're an angel.” He shook his head as if he still couldn't quite believe it.

Erik gave him a lopsided smile and shrugged helplessly. “It certainly looks like it.”

“As long as you don't get a halo next...”

Erik huffed out a laugh. “That might be pushing it a little.”

The morning sun crested over the treetops in the east just then, spilling golden light over the roof and its two occupants. “Are you ready then?” Erik asked, and held out his hand. “Because I think I might have a way to get us there faster.”

“Whom can you trust, if you can't trust your own malakhim?” Charles asked, and took his hand.

*

Erik had been able to experience teleportation second hand through Azazel before the red-skinned mutant was caught and killed. Azazel had been a strange fellow, but Erik had liked his straight-forwardness even if he wouldn't have trusted him further than he could spit him. And his mutant powers had been extremely useful.

What was happening now felt completely different, though. It started with the tugging sensation Erik had experienced before, right under his sternum, as if something or someone was pulling him in by a hook and string. Next his wings unfolded with a swoosh, glowing like stardust in the early morning light. He held onto Charles with both his hands and concentrated on the pull, feeling it out, giving himself over to it. He knew where they were going before the ground disappeared under his feet.

They materialized in an old, rundown building with one forceful flap of Erik's wings that nearly swiped him off his feet, and he had to take a few staggering steps to find his balance again.

“Where are we?” Charles breathed with awe as he looked up to the high ceiling with its metal beams, the red brick walls and blind, multi-paned windows. He was holding on to the rails of his chair with white knuckles, but that was the only outward sign that their trip had ruffled him in any way.

“It's an old pumping station,” Erik said as he gazed around. He hadn't been here in a while, and the floor was covered with dust and debris. “One of our secret hideouts. The Brotherhood has been using this one for a long time, and it's actually closest to the mansion, so it makes sense that they'd be here. As far as I know they don't have a teleporter to travel farther without running the risk of being detected.”

“Speaking of teleportation, what in the devil's name was that just now?”

Erik glanced back at his wings which were fading away into wisps of smoke. “Don't ask me. I didn't get the ins and outs of angel lore. They just gave me a cryptic speech and dropped me on a street in the middle of nowhere.”

“In front of my car.”

“In front of your car,” Erik acknowledged.

“I really thought you were a ghost then, you know.”

Erik raised an eyebrow. “Is that why you kissed me? Because you thought I wasn't real?”

Charles looked away. “Possibly,” he muttered, trying to hide his obvious embarrassment.

“I still think we should talk about that,” Erik said amused, before he returned his thoughts to the situation and became serious again. “But maybe not now.”

“No.” Charles straightened and shot him a look that had never managed to chastise Erik. “Now we find my son.”

Erik nodded. “How will you remain undetected?”

Charles pointed at his temple. “I can sense five people in the vicinity. All mutants. Four men and one woman. We'll try to evade them while we search for David, and if we come across someone I can make myself invisible.”

“This might not work on Victor,” Erik pointed out.

“Then it's good I've got you with me. You once told me you wanted me by your side. Is that still true?”

Erik swallowed. For a moment he felt the hot Cuban sand under his knees. Charles' sticky blood on his hands as he was holding him, desperate and uncomprehending.

“It will always be.”

Charles gave him a tight smile. “Then now's your chance.”

*

When the wheels of Charles' chair crunched over the broken glass and mortar, Erik gave him a worried look and then curled his fingers, rising the whole thing into the air so that it hovered a few inches above the ground.

Charles raised his eyebrows. “Erik?”

“If we're trying to avoid attention, we better not start out making a racket. This will be easier. Especially since wheelchair accessibility wasn't at the top of my priorities when I picked this place.”

Charles rolled his eyes. “And you wonder why I never visit,” he jibed, frowning at the narrow doors and the steep staircase beyond. “But I guess you have a point. Just try not to topple me over, would you?”

Erik didn't deign that with a response as he floated Charles out the door. Keeping control over Charles and the wheelchair wasn't difficult, but the property was huge, none of it easy to navigate, and David could be anywhere.

“Can't you just look for your helmet with your...” Charles wriggled his fingers in front of him.

Erik shook his head. “There's too much metal all around us.” It had been one of the draws for him, back then. The old steam engines, the pumps with their huge pistons and wheels, the metal beams and stairs and grills in every part of the complex. “I could sense it if it was in the next room, but not somewhere on the other side of the complex.”

They turned a corner, and the floor opened to the former turbine hall. It was several stories high, with metal railings running along the walls, and had been mostly cleared. Erik had often used it to exercise his powers and so had some of the others. It was empty now, and yet Charles suddenly gasped, and his hand flew to his mouth as he choked out a sob.

“No... oh god, please, no...” he whispered, staring at an area a few meters away from them.

“Charles?” Erik asked alarmed. “What's wrong?”

“David!” Charles gasped, and stretched his hand out, as if he was trying to reach something.

“Have you found him?” Maybe, Erik thought, Charles had managed to get a glimpse of the boy's mind. “Where is he? Do you know?”

“What?” Charles looked up at him, anguished and broken. “He's right there... he's... oh god, Erik, he's dead. He's dead.”

“What? No. No, that can't be.” Erik shook his head in denial. It couldn't be. It made no sense. “How do you know? Where? What are you seeing?”

“Jesus fucking Christ, Erik, he's lying right in front of you!” Charles spat, pointing ahead to the empty floor.

Erik stared at him bewildered. “There's nothing there...” Then it hit him. It was an illusion. Someone was manipulating Charles, making him see his worst nightmare. “Charles. It's a trick. It's not real, you've got to believe me. It must be Wyngarde, he can make you see things.” He grabbed Charles by the shoulders. “Look at me, Charles. The room is empty. David is not here. You've got to trust me. Wyngarde's powers don't work on me.”

“But...”

“He wants to keep you from David. You've got to break his spell!”

Erik looked around wildly, and sure enough, up on one of the metal catwalks was Jason Wyngarde, also known as Mastermind, staring down at Charles with a cruel grin on his face. Erik stretched out one hand and curled it into a fist, crushing the metal under Wyngarde's feet and making him tumble down to the floor. Charles gasped and blinked as the illusion was broken and then touched his temple, freezing the other mutant as he was trying to get back to his feet.

“I've got him,” Charles said, breathing heavily as he was trying to shake the remnants of the nightmarish visions. “But you were right. This is a trap to capture me. Fortunately, Jason here hasn't alerted the others yet. He isn't too happy that Creed has taken on the leader role and so tried to get to me first to undermine him.”

“Does he know where David is?”

Charles looked up at him and shook his head no. “It seems only Creed knows. He probably hasn't told anyone else to keep the upper hand. All Jason knows is that it must be somewhere in the complex.”

Erik cursed softly and glared at his former underling before he carefully pulled down what was left of the catwalk. He fitted it into cuffs and chains, binding Wyngarde to one of the metal pillars holding up the roof.

“What do you want to do with him?” he asked, just as Wyngarde sacked in his chains, obviously unconscious.

“I've put him to sleep,” Charles said, giving the man a disgusted look. “And you were right about another thing. The taxi-driver, who picked me up at Princeton, Wyngarde was trying to manipulate him.”

Erik clenched his hands into fists, only just resisting the urge to strangle the man with one of the chains that were wrapped around him. If it had not been for Charles, Erik would have made short shrift of Wyyngarde, mutant or no mutant. He wasn't in the habit to forgive those who came after him and his own. But he didn't. And he didn't say 'I told you so'.

“What now?” he asked instead. “Do you know where the others are?”

“Three of them are off into that direction.” Charles pointed ahead. “The woman, and two men. One is probably Sabretooth, because I can't quite get a read on him.”

“And the other one?”

Charles gnawed at his lip, cocking his head for a moment as if he was listening. “Somewhere down. He's slippery as well. I mostly get anxiety and unhappiness from him. Do you think he's another prisoner?”

“Maybe.”

“What about you?” Charles asked, looking at him with an uncertain sort of hope. “Can you feel anything?”

Erik frowned. He hadn't thought of that, but now that he tried to concentrate and listen. He could feel something. Not the gentle tug he had hoped for but a vague sort of awareness. “Somewhere out there,” he muttered, turning to the doors that led to the yard.

He slowly pushed them open, silencing their grating hinges, and peeked out. The yard was empty as well, but his gaze was immediately drawn across the open space to a rusty metal rail. It belonged to a set of narrow stairs leading down to some cellars, and Erik remembered that they spread for quite a bit, leading to the sewers eventually.

“It's down there, isn't it?” Charles said quietly next to him.

“I'm not sure. It's a hunch at best.”

“I think it's worth a look. The other mutant, the anxious one, is somewhere down there, too.”

It was certainly the best lead that they had, but there was another problem.

“The stairs and the entrance is too narrow for your chair, though.” Erik grimaced, wracking his brain for a solution. “There's another access, but we'd have to take a huge detour and risk alerting Creed and the others. Or I could dismantle the chair and carry you down, then put it together again. But we might not get far until we face the same problem.”

“You go,” Charles said calmly. “I'll stay here and wait. If you find David, you can take him to safety, then come back for me.”

Erik didn't like the sound of that at all. “I can't leave you here on your own!”

“I promise I won't go anywhere,” Charles replied wryly. “And I'm quite capable of defending myself, don't worry.”

“You said it yourself,” Erik argued. “Capturing you is their true agenda.”

“Which doesn't change the fact that David needs you.” Charles smile was devastating when he turned it on him. “Please, my friend. Show me that I'm right to trust in you.”

The whole situation spelled disaster, but it wasn't like Erik had a better plan. Out of all of them, David was the most vulnerable. He looked down at Charles, feeling the need to say something, but the words didn't come and there really was no time for declarations.

“I'll be back,” he promised, and then set off in a run towards the stairs.

The door at the bottom was locked, but that had never stopped Erik. He opened it with a quick flick of his fingers and stepped into the dark, narrow passage beyond. It smelled of moss and decay. Erik had to duck his head so he didn't bump it on the rough stone ceiling as he followed the path down deeper into the bowels of the station. Soon he could smell the sewers, and he stopped to listen. But the only sound was the dripping of water and the occasional scuttle of a rat.

He went on, trying to concentrate on his instinct when he came to a crossroad, praying to deities he didn't believe in that he was going in the right direction. He was finally rewarded when he stopped next and could hear a voice, talking lowly somewhere ahead, although it was hard to say how far since the sound carried quite far down here.

Erik hastened his steps, splashing through some shallow puddles, until he could finally see the end of the tunnel. It opened into a circular section where more tunnels were coming together and daylight trickled down from a grilled cover high above them. In the middle of the floor was a hole, roughly two meters wide, leading down a well, and there was a man sitting there, dangling his feet and apparently talking to someone down at the bottom. It was Toad.

Of all of Erik's followers, Toad had probably been one of the least homicidal, although that wasn't saying much. His low self-esteem and somewhat slow comprehension meant he was pushed around a lot by the other members of the Brotherhood, treated like a lackey more than an equal. Erik had to admit he'd never had much time for the boy, either, yet Toad had always been extremely loyal.

“You're lucky, you know,” Toad was saying just now. “If he wants you as bait, it means someone cares about you. No one ever cared about me. Not my parents. Left me, you know. Can't even remember them. Grew up in an orphanage, but they all hated me, too. Then the government took me.”

Toad shuddered, probably remembering the facility he'd been held back then.

“Maybe Magneto cared, a little,” he continued gloomily. “He found me, you know? Took me with him. Made me part of the Brotherhood. But he's dead now. It's not the same. Sabretooth took over. Treats me like his boot scraper. Thinks I'm stupid. But I'm not. But your Daddy might come for you. Of course that means Sabretooth will kill him. It's a shame. Nothing you can do, though. Now, if Magneto was still here. He'd never kill the Professor, oh no.”

So it was David down that well. Erik breathed a sigh of relief. If Toad was talking to him, it meant he was alive. Erik stepped out of the shadows.

“Mortimer,” he said, calling the mutant by his real name. And Toad looked up, his eyes growing big like saucers. For whatever reason, he could see him.

“M- Magneto,” he stuttered, scrambling up from his position. “But... you're dead.”

“What, you thought that was going to stop me?” Erik asked wryly.

Toad leaped over the hole in the floor, landing in a crouch in front of Erik and looking up at him with the adoration of a child. He stretched out one hand to touch him, but held back as if he didn't quite dare to try.

Erik grabbed him by one shoulder. “Is Xavier's son down there?”

Toad looked away to the side, but nodded. “Am not supposed to be here. Am not supposed to know. Found him. Thought he'd be lonely.”

Erik stepped past him to the edge of the well and looked down. It was deep and too dark to see to the bottom. Erik didn't hesitate but jumped and slowly sank down towards the bottom, holding himself afloat by pushing against the magnetic field. Darkness encompassed him and, all of a sudden, his wings materialized, illuminating the well beneath him with a soft gray light.

He could see David now, sitting on the floor with his hands bound behind him and Erik's old helmet upon his head. He was squinting up while trying to shrink back, but there was nowhere to go.

“Don't be scared,” Erik called softly. “It's Erik. I've come to take you home.”

“Erik?” David whispered uncertainly when he landed beside him and knelt down to pull off the helmet that was covering half of the boy's face.

He loosened the rope around the boy's wrists next, and David threw himself forward clutching Erik around the middle and burying his face against Erik's chest. “I'm so glad you came,” he whispered. “I was so scared. I know I shouldn't have run away, but you and Dad were fighting and...”

“It's okay,” Erik soothed him. “We're not mad. Your dad and I were just as scared. Let's get you out of—”

“Daddy?” David suddenly gasped, pulling back and staring at a point in mid-distance. Then he started to cry.

“David?” Erik asked alarmed.

“He's here,” David sniffled. “I can hear him in my head.”

Erik sagged in relief. Of course. As soon as the helmet was gone, Charles had been able to sense David's mind. “He's waiting for us upstairs,” Erik explained and then stood, pulling David up with him.

“I can't believe he came,” David confessed teary-eyed.

Erik squeezed his small shoulder. “Of course he did. Nothing could have kept him away.”

Erik picked David up, holding his small body tightly pressed against him as he rose up towards the opening of the well, and David kept clinging to him even as Erik landed back on the floor beside it.

“You're an angel,” he whispered against Erik's neck. “I knew it!”

Toad was gaping at them completely thunderstruck. Erik cleared his throat and then rolled his shoulders, managing to shake off the embarrassing wings again. They were a bit too dramatic for his taste, but Toad seemed impressed. Erik wasn't going to leave that unexploited.

“Do you know what Creed's plan is?” he asked him while staring him down.

Toad nodded reluctantly. “Thinks I'm too stupid to understand. But I know what he wants. Doesn't like mutants getting all chummy with humans. Thinks we're better than that. He'll kill the professor and then make it look like it was the government.“ He looked away, muttering, “Might have killed the boy, too. Wouldn't let him do that. No sir.”

“You don't need to follow someone like Creed,” Erik told him. “I know I've not always been kind to you, but there can be a better place for you, if you want.”

Erik hoped Charles wouldn't mind sheltering another former member of the Brotherhood, but then Charles had a savior complex a mile wide, and Toad was the classic case of a victim of abuse. He was loyal, though, and Erik didn't think he was beyond saving.

“Been kinder than most,” Toad muttered. “Nothing holding me here.”

In that moment, David grabbed Erik's arm, making him flinch as small fingers dug painfully into his flesh. “Erik!” he gasped. “Something's wrong with Daddy, we've got to help him!”

Erik looked down at the boy in alarm. “What? How do you know?”

“I— I don't know,” David stuttered while he kept tugging on Erik's arm. “I can feel it. He's in trouble!”

“They probably caught him,” Toad said. “Won't waste much time for playing games. Go right in for the kill.”

David started to sob, and Erik cursed. He had known it was a bad idea to leave Charles, because this was exactly what he'd been afraid of. Now he was down here when he should be by Charles' side to protect him. His mind was racing as he looked around. Going back the same way would take too long, but there was an exit above them. It might be a tight fit, but they should be able to squeeze through. Determinedly Erik stretched one arm out above him and ripped the metal bars from their hold, then quickly pulled David close with the other, ducking his head as a shower of stone and mortar came raining down on them. When the dust had settled, Erik picked David up again and the boy clung to him as if he was his lifeline.

“Will you be able to get up there?” Erik asked Toad.

It was a challenge. The exit was roughly fifty feet above them and the walls were rough stone, too sleek to climb. But Erik had no doubts in Toad's abilities. He really was asking him to make a stand. Toad looked almost offended. He crouched, and then jumped, clinging to a tiny ledge halfway up before he took the rest in another leap. When he had climbed out of the hole, he looked back down and called, “Are you coming?”

Erik just raised his eyebrows, amused. He rose up with David in his arms until he was close enough to the exit so that he could lift the boy up towards Toad, who pulled him through. Erik climbed out last and, upon looking around, saw that they were standing in a field a good two hundred meters outside the pumping station.

“I've got to help Charles,” he told Toad, eyes at the red brick wall, beyond which Charles was facing three dangerous mutants on his own. “Can I trust you to look after the boy?”

Toad looked surprised, but then his chest swelled with pride and he nodded eagerly. “Can trust me. Will keep the boy safe.”

“I won't take long,” Erik told David quietly when the boy bit his lip, and Erik quickly ruffled his hair.

It was surprisingly hard to turn away from him, but the thought of Charles in trouble filled Erik's mind and pushed him to hurry. He set off in a run, across the field, towards the high brick wall that was surrounding the property, hoping he wasn't too late, hoping that Charles would somehow be able to hold them off or at least buy himself some time.

As he came closer, Erik could hear the rough voice of Victor Creed, ringing out in the courtyard beyond.

“I have to admit I was hoping you'd be stupid enough to come here, Professor. But even I didn't think you'd be stupid enough to come alone.”

“What do you want, Creed?” Charles' voice was controlled, but laced with disdain. “I don't think it's Senator Kelly you're after.”

Creed laughed. “No. I think we can agree that killing him would send the completely wrong message. Your death on the other hand, will drive mutants into the revolution we need. I'll make a martyr out of you. Out of you and your son.”

Sick and burning with rage and fear, Erik pushed himself up into the air again. It wasn't lost to him how familiar Creed's rhetoric sounded. Toad was right, he'd never have harmed Charles, nor would he have harmed a child, but that didn't mean he wouldn't have hazarded what humans called collateral damage these days. Erik had always known that innocent lives were lost in every war, but now that he was faced with the idea that these lives could be Charles and David, it turned his stomach.

He rose higher until he could see Charles, sitting in his chair on the opposite side of the courtyard, not far from where he had left him, facing Creed as well as two other mutants. Lorelei had been a new recruit after Washington; a pretty blonde who was able to paralyze men with her hypnotic singing voice. She was humming a strange tune, but Charles had two fingers pressed to his temple and seemed to be able to shield from her. The other mutant Erik didn't know, but he was massive and looked like he probably possessed some superhuman strength at least.

“I'm afraid I have no interest in that,” Charles was saying just now, unfazed.

“And yet you can't stop me,” Creed sneered. “I've learned to resist telepaths like you. But don't worry. I'll make it quick.”

Erik saw Victor jump, claws stretched out, teeth bared, and reached for everything metal that he could find: barbed wire, fire ladders, window frames. He was even prepared to pull the pumps itself out through the brick walls, but before he could form a precise thought or plan of action, he saw the burly mutant rush forward and plant himself between Creed and Charles, absorbing the vicious slashes with hardly any reaction. Creed hissed and pushed at the giant, trying to get past him, when suddenly Lorelei was coming up behind him. She had a long knife in her hand and rammed it deep into Creed's back without a blink, twisting it upwards with so much force that Erik was sure he had been gutted.

For a second, he stared, uncomprehending, until both Lorelei and her companion moved away with blank faces and sat down on the ground across the yard. Erik gaped at Charles as the penny dropped. It had all been Charles. He had not been able to stop Creed by controlling his mind, and so he had used the others, making them do it for him. He had used the burly mutant to protect himself, but he had used Lorelei to kill Creed, who was now lying on his back on the floor in front of Charles' chair in a pool of blood that was quickly spreading. His chest was heaving as he struggled for breath.

Charles next words were spoken so quietly, that Erik almost didn't hear them.

“You shouldn't have taken my son.”

Creed smiled through the blood in his mouth. “You just signed his death warrant,” he spat. “You will never find him, only I know where he is.”

“That's where your mistaken,” Erik said as he dropped down next to Charles, giving him a quick look over to reassure himself he was all right. “David is already safe.”

Creed stared up at him with wide eyes. “Who... who are you?” he rasped, coughing up more blood. “A shape-shifter... it can't be...”

Erik smiled at him coldly. “Oh no. I'm exactly who you think I am. And I can tell you, Creed...” And then he leaned down to whisper the next words right into the man's face. “You won't like where you're going.”

Creed stared at him as if he was seeing the devil, and Erik had no problem slipping into that role for the moment. He smiled with all his teeth and Creed took a last gurgling breath before his eyes glazed over.

Toad appeared between the twisted gates just then and cautiously looked around. As soon as he saw Sabretooth lying on the ground defeated and realized that the other two of his companions posed no threat any longer, he waved at someone outside and a short moment later, David peeked out from behind him. The boy anxiously scanned the yard and then started forward in a run when he caught sight of Charles, hurling towards them like a little whirlwind. Charles let out a sigh of relief and opened his arms, and David crawled on his lap without a moment of hesitation, throwing his arms around his father's neck while Charles held him close, stroking his hair.

“I'm here,” he murmured. “Thank god, you're all right. I was so worried.”

“I'm sorry I ran away,” David sniffled. “And I'm sorry I said I hated you. I don't!”

“I know. But we can talk about all of that later, now I'm just glad to have you back.”

“Can we go home now?” David asked hopefully.

Charles smiled at him. “Yes.”

Erik shot Charles a questioning look, nodding at the dead man on the ground, but Charles just shook his head and pointed at his temple. Erik realized that Charles must have created a blind spot in David's mind to spare him the sight, and he was now all but ignoring the man he had killed—if by proxy. Erik felt no conflict to play along, but there was one more thing to take care of.

“Charles, this is Mortimer Toynbee.”

Charles gave Toad one of his warm smiles. “Hello, Mortimer.”

Toad nodded at him but couldn't quite bring himself to make eye-contact.

“I've known Mortimer a long time,” Erik said. “And I can vouch for him. He's loyal and only followed Creed for lack of options, and he was prepared to defy him to help David.”

Toad shifted nervously on his feed, not used to either the praise or the attention.

“Then you have my gratitude,” Charles told Toad. “And if you need a place to stay, you're quite welcome at the mansion.”

Toad's eyes bugged. “The X-Mansion?” he asked.

Charles laughed. “Is that what they call it? Well, yes. Just remember that it's a school and there are certain rules that have to be followed.”

Toad nodded. “Yes, sir. I'll remember.”

“What about the others?” Erik asked, glancing at Lorelei and the other man.

Charles shrugged. “Wyngarde has already made a run for it, and I don't think these two pose much of a threat on their own. We can call the police and let them deal with it.”

Erik couldn't say that leaving them to the human authorities sat well with him, but he conceded the point. Right now, all he wanted was to take Charles and David home where they would be safe, because Erik wouldn't leave them out of his sight ever again.

*

When they landed back on the roof of the mansion, it was with a bit more grace this time around. Erik's wings stretched out above them, but he managed to stay on his feet and set Charles' chair down gently. David—who must have been completely exhausted by the whole ordeal—had fallen asleep on Charles' lap. From the position of the sun that was peeking through a milky cloud cover, bathing the world in a bleak, yellow light, Erik gathered that it was late afternoon.

“I should take him to his room and his own bed,” Charles said, gazing fondly down at his sleeping son. “And tell the others what has happened.” He looked up then with an uncertain smile. “Do you want to come with me or would you rather...?”

“I think I'll stay out here for a bit,” Erik replied. He could see how much Charles savored this moment of closeness with David and it didn't seem right to intrude on it.

“All right.” Charles gazed up at him for another moment, and there was a new happiness to him that made him look years younger. “I'll see you later then.”

Erik watched him leave towards the elevator access, only turning away when the door had fallen shut behind him. There were storm clouds drawing up from the west, slowly threatening to eat up the sun, but they were still too far away to be worrisome. He would stay on the roof for a bit, let Charles explain to his friends and comrades without Erik's interference and then, when he came back and they had some time alone together, Erik planned to not let Charles evade the underlying tension between them any longer. They had wasted too many years to let another day go amiss with half-truths and bitter misunderstandings.

Erik looked out at the satellite dish and, from one moment to the next, it was gone. The roof and everything was gone. Instead he stood in a park, on top of a snow-covered slope that led down to a lake framed by weeping willows. Their hanging branches were brushing the mirrored surface where a flock of swans was gliding gracefully between them, leaving ripples in their wake. Erik knew this place. The park, now hidden under a dusting of snow, stark and lonely in the thrall of winter, nevertheless stretched out lush and green in his mind. The laughter of children rang in his ears as he ran along the paths, feeling the earth under his bare feet and the warm summer sun on his face and arms. Once, he had been a boy here, young and innocent and unaware of what was to come.

Tender flakes of snow settled on his hair and shoulders now while melting against the fading shimmer of his wings, and his eyes were drawn to a lone figure standing further down the shore, gazing out over the water.

Erik slowly walked closer. When he was only a few yards away, the figure turned and Erik recognized his handler. This time she was wearing a white winter coat with fur trimming, and her braids were spilling from under a white, woolen hat.

“Hello Erik,” she said with that maternal smile of hers that didn’t sit quite right with him.

“Where are we?” Erik asked instead of a greeting.

“I’m not sure.” She looked around appreciatively. “But it’s a beautiful place. And it means a lot to you.”

“It means nothing. I haven’t been here since I was a kid.”

“You were innocent then,” she told him with a wistful smile. “Such a bright and beautiful soul.”

“Yes, well, we both know that didn’t last.”

She shook her head. “It’s still there. And I’m not the only one who can see it.”

Erik couldn't say he had missed this cryptic nonsense. “What do you want?”

“You earned your wings,” she said. “I'm proud of you.”

“Nothing I have done was to earn your approval.”

If he had thought this would manage to offend her, he was sorely mistaken; her smile only turned brighter. “I know. And that's part of why you did so well.”

“Then saving the boy was what I was here for?”

She gave him a long look. “You were here for many reasons, Erik. But I came to tell you that your task has been fulfilled. It is done. You've convinced those who've doubted you and can move on now. The price is yours to claim.”

Dread filled Erik like an icy tide. “I have no interest in some stupid prize,” he snapped. “All I want is—”

It was raining and Erik was standing on the roof of the mansion, slowly getting drenched. The cold was creeping in, but Erik couldn't have cared less. He felt numb inside, and at the same time shattered, as if he had died a second time.

_It was done._

He had been a fool all over again, thinking there was time when his own had already run out.

*

Death had followed Erik since he was a very young boy. He had lived his life as if it had been borrowed, aware there was a deadline and that he would be expected to hand it back in. That knowledge had always driven him, whether it was in the pursuit of vengeance or his wish to ensure the survival of their kind, and when the time came, he had planned to go with his head held high. That moment had come, and he had not asked for the reprieve he had been given. But now that the end was staring him in the face, he felt himself wanting to dig in his heals, to beg for one more day, another hour, a minute longer, knowing that it would never be enough.

It was close to dusk now and the rain was coming down steady, soaking his clothes and running in little rivulets from his hair and brow. And while curtains of water obscured the world around him, he could still feel the satellite dish in the distance. It was like a beacon, a monument of his past, and in a way Erik felt as if he had come full circle.

When he heard the crunch of wheels on the wet stone and sensed the metal of Charles' chair coming closer, he closed his eyes. Trust Charles to find him now, in a moment he felt so desperate and broken he was fraying at the seams. From the beginning, Charles had been Erik’s one weakness. When they met, Erik had been a weapon with a single purpose and he didn't have any compunction about dying for his goals. But then Charles had come along, had changed the game and dealt Erik new cards—brilliant cards—if only Erik had known the rules.

“Erik?”

The concern in Charles’ voice pierced him like a dagger to the chest and it was all Erik could do to hold on to his composure.

“You know,” he said, still staring out into the rain, “they say life is wasted on the living. It certainly was wasted on me.”

There was a long pause before Charles spoke, and Erik dreaded his words as much as he longed for them.

“I don’t think it was wasted.”

Erik laughed bitterly. “I was blind,” he insisted. “For most of my life.”

“None of us is without fault.”

The gentle compassion in Charles' words was slowly killing him, and Erik turned to find him sitting in his chair, wrapped in a dark blue coat and shielding himself from the rain with an enormous, tartan umbrella. Erik could only imagine what a sight he himself must be in comparison, soaked to the bone with his hair plastered to his head.

“But if you mean that you would do things differently if you had the chance, then I can't say that I'm a stranger to that thought.” Charles added with a wistful smile.

“I would still fight for our kind,” Erik felt compelled to clarify, because that would always be the truth. “We are superior. The next evolutional step. The future. But you’re right that the world needs time to change. That doesn’t mean there aren’t people out there—powerful people—who will do everything they can to stop us. This time it wasn't the government who came after your son, next time it might be. You haven’t seen what I’ve seen, Charles. What human beings are capable of. And sometimes I think you don't want to see it.”

Charles bowed his head. “So you would still fight me.”

“No, Charles. This time I would protect you.”

“From my own naivety?”

“Among other things.”

“So, in the end, we do want the same thing, we just have different ways to achieve it. That doesn't mean they have to be mutually exclusive.” The smile on Charles’ face wavered, and he could no longer hide the painfully knowing look in his eyes. “But it's too late now, isn't it?”

“I wish it wasn't,” Erik said, struggling because his throat felt too tight. “But it might be time now for you to let me go.”

Charles shook his head. “I'm afraid that's not in my capability to do, my friend.” His face was wet with what could be rain, but so were his eyes, glistening with desperate emotion.

“Charles.” Erik crouched down in front of the chair and took Charles' hand into his own. “You know I don't want to leave you. I never did.”

“Then don't,” Charles begged. “Stay. Right here, by my side.”

Erik briefly closed his eyes. His heart ached in his chest. “You have no idea how much I want that,” he whispered. “I want to stay and learn everything that I’ve missed. I want to see David grow up, and you grow old. I want to argue and make up and I want to finally kiss you the way I've been waiting to do for the past twenty years.”

“You did,” Charles reminded him. “Once.”

Erik forced himself to smile. “Whatever made you think that once would be enough?”

“Then come inside. You’re still here, aren't you? You’re still here now.”

Erik stared at the plain need written on Charles' face. There was no way Erik could deny him. And Charles was right, Erik had never played by the rules, what reason did he have to start now? He felt light-headed when he rose to his feet and saw Charles swallow heavily, obviously thinking that he was being rejected one final time.

Erik couldn't stand it. All of a sudden, reaching down and lifting Charles up into his arms felt like the most natural thing to do. Charles' eyes widened and he tensed, but only for a second. Then he slung one strong arm around Erik’s shoulder, still clutching his umbrella so that it stretched above them like a low, tartan roof. Erik bumped his head on it and cold water sloshed down the back of his shirt, but he was blind and numb to anything but the light of hope in Charles’ eyes and the warm weight of his body pressed against Erik's chest and stomach.

“You’re impossible,” Charles whispered, reaching up to stroke a wet strand of hair from Erik's forehead.

Erik smiled down at him. “Admit it. You've always liked that about me.”

Charles, unsurprisingly, admitted nothing. Instead he cupped the back of Erik's head and pulled him closer until their lips met, soft and hesitant, tasting of rain and hope and old regrets.

*

Erik was glad that they didn't encounter anyone on their way. He didn't know whether they would have been seen, but he also had no idea how Charles would have reacted if they had, and he didn't want to risk him getting second thoughts.

“You do know that I have a perfectly operable wheelchair, don't you?” Charles asked at some point, regarding Erik fondly. They had gotten rid of the umbrella once they got inside, but the chair was still floating, ghost-like, behind them. So, yes, Erik knew, but he quite liked the way Charles' body was pressed closed to him like this.

“Maybe I don't want you to get away again,” he said, and Charles huffed out a laugh, leaning his head against Erik's shoulder.

“I'd be a fool to try,” he said softy and Erik's heart sped up in his chest.

When they reached Charles' door, Erik pushed it open with his powers and stepped into a room that was familiar, yet overlain with years of small changes, as if the room itself had aged. But this time it didn't make Erik melancholic. They were about to start something new and it felt appropriate to be reminded of the long way they had come. At least the bed remained as it had always been, and it was there that Erik carried Charles, gently putting him down on the slightly wrinkled covers.

“I hope you don't think me too presumptuous,” he said when he sat down next to Charles and allowed his eyes to rake over his body, making no attempt to hide his appreciation.

“Oh, I'm quite happy with your presumptions so far.” Charles grinned and stretched out against the pillows, giving Erik an outright lascivious look.

It was a very enticing display, but then Charles had always been a bit of a tease and Erik knew, deep down, that this would not be as easy as it once might have been. He reached out and carefully spread a hand across Charles' stomach.

“Then I'm just going to ask you if there's anything else I need to know.”

For a moment Charles seemed to deflate a little. “Well, there's the obvious,” he said with a hint of bitterness. “I'm sorry to say that I won't be riding you into the mattress.”

Erik raised his eyebrows. “I'm sure there will be ways to make up for that. But that's your legs. What about the rest?”

Charles huffed. “While I might not have the—honestly quite amazing—staying power of my youth, I can assure you that it's all in working order.”

Erik smiled wryly. “I'm glad to hear that.”

“Sometimes I might not manage to maintain an erection,” Charles went on. “Although to tell you the truth that hasn't been a problem the past few days.” He rolled his eyes when Erik's smile turned smug, and crossed his arms in front of his chest. “What about you then?”

“Me?”

Charles gestured to his crotch. “Well, I wouldn't know, but with you being an angel and all that...”

“Are you asking me whether I've been neutered, Charles?” Erik asked with a dangerous glint in his eyes and took Charles' hand to place it against the bulge between his legs. “It's all still there. Every single inch.”

Charles' eyes widened appreciatively. “It certainly seems so,And apparently there are quite a few of them.” He pressed down harder, cupping Erik through his jeans, and Erik let out a helpless moan. Charles laughed breathlessly. “I can't quite believe we're finally going to do this,” he confessed. “We are going to do this, aren't we?”

Erik leaned over and took hold of Charles' jaw, capturing his mouth in a hungry kiss. “You better believe it,” he whispered against Charles' lips, leaving them red and wet from his assault when they broke apart again. He stroked the pad of his thumb down Charles' jawline before he let it glide over his jugular, lightly pushing down.

Charles swallowed. His chest was heaving, and he already looked halfway to destruction. “Get out of your clothes,” he ordered, pushing up Erik's turtleneck. “I want to see you.”

Erik let the corner of his mouth curl into a teasing smile. He felt no shame in regard to his body, hardened and battle-scared as it might be, and so pulled the garment over his head without hesitation, drawing back to give Charles the opportunity to look.

“Oh, Erik.” Charles reached out, gently running his fingers along a faint silver line that went from Erik's collarbone all the way to his navel.

“They're just scars,” Erik reminded him.

“Yes.” Charles smoothed his palms over the plains of Erik's chest, down to his stomach and up his sides again. “But they're a part of you. Your story. Proof of your survival.”

“Will you let me see yours?” Erik asked, and Charles looked at him surprised. He had obviously not thought of that.

“Erik—”

“Will you let me see what I did to you?”

“You didn't—” Charles took his hand and placed a soft kiss into his palm. “I know it was an accident.”

Erik stroked up over Charles' thigh and hip, curling his fingers to reach behind his back. “And yet I hurt you.”

“We hurt each other, in many ways,” Charles said. “But what good does it do to revel in our past mistakes?”

He pushed himself up and slowly, with the barest hint of self-consciousness, started to unbutton his shirt. Erik couldn't find any reason for such hesitance. While Charles was shorter than him, he was also broader and using a wheelchair for all these years had strengthened his upper body to impressive proportions. Everything was hard, lean muscle and sinew, and Erik wanted to push him down against the mattress, hold him captive while he explored every inch with his lips and tongue.

They got rid of their pants next, and Erik did turn Charles on his side then, so that he could stroke along the puckered skin where the bullet had ripped through Charles to break his spine. Bending low, he pressed silent kisses of apology along Charles' back, and then, when Charles moaned and rolled on his stomach, continued further over the swell of his ass and into the crease of his thighs.

“Can you feel any of this?” Erik whispered.

There was a deep intake of breath before Charles answered. “No. A bit in my upper buttocks, but nothing below that, I'm afraid.”

Erik pressed his forehead to the small of Charles' back. He wanted to weep for all they had lost but Charles was right, there was no way to change the past and if these small hours were all they were going to get, they were too precious to waste with grief and regrets. He stretched out behind Charles, wrapped himself around him and pulled him close against his chest.

“Then you'll have to teach me all the things that make you feel good,” he whispered, kissing along the curve of Charles' neck. “You're an educator, after all, and I'm very willing to learn.”

Over the next hours, Erik found out a great many things about Charles he had not previously known. He discovered that Charles loved it when he sucked bruises in the hollow above his collarbone, but nearly came undone when he lightly wrapped a hand around his throat while doing so. His nipples were absurdly sensitive and, when rubbed and licked in just the right way, brought him to the brink of orgasm. Erik spent quite some time exploring the most effective method, while Charles writhed beneath him, his face flushed and his hair sticking to his forehead, the praise falling from his lips turning into half coherent curses.

Below the waist things became more difficult, but Erik was no less eager to investigate. There was a spot just above Charles' hipbone that, when kissed, made him hum in pleasure and, while he had lost most sensation further down, licking into the top of the valley between his asscheeks made him moan like a whore. Throughout it all, Charles' cock remained full and heavy with arousal, and Erik finally took mercy on him, sucking hard and fast before taking it all the way down his throat. Charles cursed, pulling at Erik's hair while pushing him down further on his length, and then came in a mess of tears and laughter, the picture of a man much younger and unharmed by all life's losses. Spread out on the sweat-drenched covers, he looked beautiful – satisfied and exhausted, and Erik loved him, with all the painful desperation such a feeling wrought.

He didn't say the words. They felt too fragile, still, and so he kept them closely guarded to his heart.

Charles, ever the generous teacher, later rewarded him with a hot and perfect mouth around his prick and clever fingers up his ass. And in the gray hours of the morning they fell asleep in each others arms like lovers – side by side, as it always should have been.

*

The creak of the door pulled Erik from his sleep, but it took Alex's shrieks and curses to truly wake him up.

“Jesus fucking Christ! My eyes! What the fuck, you guys, why are you naked? No, god, please don't answer that. I don't think my brain can handle any more—”

“Alex, what—” Charles was sitting up, adorably dishevelled and decorated with the visible proof of last night's love-making. “Can you see him?” he asked, looking from Alex to Erik with wide eyes.

Alex looked stunned. “Yes! Yes, I can see him! Although I really wish I couldn't right now. But, still, why can I see him?”

Erik pushed himself up to lean against the headboard and raised his eyebrows at Charles, giving him an amused look. The sheet which they had pulled over themselves haphazardly last night slid down and Alex let out some more expletives.

Charles, though, seemed to have forgotten Alex was even in the room. He stared at Erik with his mouth open, a look of utter joy and disbelief upon his face.

“You're there,” he whispered. “I can... Erik, I can read your mind.”

Erik blinked. “You mean—?”

_“Oh, my darling, why didn't you tell me?”_

_“Tell you—?”_

_“There's no need—. I feel the same way about you, I always have. I thought you knew.”_

“And I thought you could only read my mind. Now you're reading my heart as well?”

Charles shot him a guilty look. “I'm sorry. This was presumptuous of me. I was just... I can read your mind again Erik, and that must mean something. Don't you think?”

The hope in Charles voice was so plain and seductive, for once Erik just wanted to join him in his easy optimism. But there were some things that would probably never change, and one of them was that Erik was a distrustful, old cynic.

Seeing Erik's hesitation, Charles face fell. “Of course, if you want me to stay out, I will. I know without your helmet you'll have to trust—”

Erik grabbed Charles hand and pressed it to his mouth in a kiss. “You can read my mind, or my heart for that matter, whenever you want,” he told him. “It's been yours for a long time anyway.”

He pulled Charles closer, only pausing for a second when, somewhere in the periphery, Alex started to make gagging noises. Luckily, Alex's leather jacket was adorned with lots of studs and buckles and Erik simply pushed him out the door, slamming it behind him.

“I'll tell Hank!” Alex shouted from the other side. It wasn't completely clear whether he meant it as a threat or a way to be helpful; seeing that it was Alex, it could well be both.

Charles gave Erik an admonishing look that fell completely short of masking his amusement, and then slung his arms around his neck. “How long do you think we have?”

Erik grinned and locked the door with a flick of his fingers. “Let's find out.”

*

In the space between, Fate closed the file on its desk with a satisfied smile as the grandfather clock in the corner began ticking again. Hopefully it would not have to be pulled out again for a very long time.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> About the title: "Malakh" is the Hebrew word for "Angel" (the plural being "Malakhim"). "Shalom" is the Hebrew word for "Peace", but it's also used to both greet someone or to bid them farewell.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Art for : Shalom Malakh](https://archiveofourown.org/works/6784972) by [spaceAltie](https://archiveofourown.org/users/spaceAltie/pseuds/spaceAltie)




End file.
